I Didn't Sign Up For This
by Riana Salvatore
Summary: Miley and Lilly are new students at Stanford. Things seem to be going well until an explosion causes a definite tragedy. Miley vows to find out who's responsible. But She doesn't expect to involved in a love triangle or get roped into solving other cases.
1. School's In

So Stanford was different. Here I wasn't a celebrity but just another student. This was partly due to the fact that I could call Campus Police if I ever had a problem with people. Part of going to college was being normal. That is why I didn't sign up for any music classes. I probably wasn't going to major in music. Unfortunately I didn't know what I was going to major in. I looked at Lilly. I knew that she had declared a major but at the moment I was drawing a blank on what it was. I would have to ask her when she got back from the food court. I didn't have to wait long because soon she returned with a bag from Applebee's. Apparently they had a limited menu but still good food.

"Looks good." I remarked as I took a whiff. "Smells good too."

"It's the joy of having unlimited credits." Lilly remarked.

"Careful Lilly, we need to avoid the Freshman 15." I warned her.

"That's nothing but a myth." Lilly replied as she took a bite into her burger. "Besides you know how much I exercise."

"Yeah a lot of that included surfing." I pointed out. "We're not by the beach anymore."

"Yeah but there is a gym on campus." Lilly countered. "And we're also gonna be walking to classes."

"So what was your major again?" I asked.

"I'm majoring in business." Lilly replied. "Have you decided on anything yet?"

"No I think I'm just gonna wait out the semester to decide." I said taking a bite. "I know I have to take my Gen. Ed. classes right now anyway. Maybe I'll find something I like in one of those."

"So what classes are you taking this semester?" She asked.

"I'm taking Sociology 101, Geometry 101, English 101 and Spanish 101." I answered. "What about you?"

"Biology 101, English 101, Intro to Business, and Algebra 101." She told me. "Maybe you shouldn't have waited till the last day to sign up. Or maybe you should have just majored in music."

"I didn't want to take the easy route." I explained. "I want something challenging. "Besides, I don't need a degree in music. I'm already good at it. It's too bad that we're not in any of the same classes."

"Yeah." Lilly agreed before the two of us heard the sound of loud music coming from the room next store. I banged on the wall but the sound did go down.

"Let me take care of this." I suggested as I walked out of the room and over to the next door. I banged on the door and that got me an answer. The door opened but I didn't look up at the person. "Okay I don't know who you are but you need to turn down you music."

"Sure thing, _Hannah_!" The girl responded. Oh no why did it have to be her? Of the schools in the country, she had to go to this one?

"Mikayla…I didn't know you were coming here." I stammered.

"Yeah it was a secret." She spat. "But you must know a thing about keeping secrets. You know if you would have told me, I might actually still like you but you fucking played me. I bet you were thrilled when my movie got cancelled and my career went down the drain."

I didn't know what to say. I really didn't know what to say.

"And by the way, don't coming knocking on my door anymore." Mikayla added. "Also if you turn up any music, I will report you to the RA."

Then she slammed the door in my face. Mikayla officially hates me again. I walked back into my room to see Lilly hang up her phone.

"Guess what?" She asked excitedly. I decided I would play her game.

"You have a gynecologist appointment?" I guessed, having purposely selected something far off.

"No." Lilly replied as she gave me a strange look. "Oliver's gonna be playing a show here next week."

"That sounds great." I replied. Damn I was kind of hoping that he would be on tour for a while since I had just dumped my beard. I came back because I was in love with Lilly after all.

The next morning, I woke up to go to my Sociology class. After a shower and breakfast, I headed down there. Being so late to register, I was stuck with my mostly morning and night classes while Lilly got to sleep.

The class I was in was actually quite large. It was one of those stadium style classrooms so there had to be at least 10 students in the class. I decided to stand by the front of the class while everyone filed in. I needed to say something before the class started. The teacher allowed it.

"Okay attention everybody." I announced as they all looked at me. "Hi. I basically just want you to know that I don't want to be treated any differently and that includes from our professor. Anyway just treat the way you would any other student, even if that means ignoring me. Oh, and to any desperate guys, no I will not go out with you. Thank you for your time."

I then took a seat and the teacher or Professor as I think they liked to be here start his lecture. He was definitely a good looking guy.

"Okay now onto me." He said. "That's quite a tough act to follow."

Everyone in the room laughed.

"Okay enough jokes. I'm Professor King." He stated. "I'm betting most of you are wondering what the hell is sociology? Luckily I can answer that for you. To put it simply, sociology is the study of society. It's kind of psychology except where psychology focuses on the individual, sociology cares more about groups and how they act. This first isn't really supposed to be a lecture. It's more of a getting to know people exercise. Now what I want you to do is for you to look at the person on left and have a conversation with them. Talk about interests, hobbies where they live whatever you need to know. Now in a class this size, I don't have time for you to introduce each other so I want to write a short summary about him or her. I want at least two paragraphs and this will go towards your participation grade. You have till the end of class and both papers must be turned in together but you may leave after you and your partner are finished. If you have any questions, feel free to come up and ask me. You may begin."

So the person beside me was a girl with dark brown hair wearing a blouse and black skirt. She looked pretty professional for a college student.

"Hi." I greeted.

"Hey I'm Drew." She stated with a smile.

"So you're not gonna go relaying what I tell you to the tabloids, are you?" I joked.

"No because you said to treat you like any other student and I don't think they would be interested in any of these other students." She quipped. I already knew that I was going to like this girl. "So let's start with your non-singing hobbies."

"Well I like horseback riding, dancing and definitely don't like sports." I responded.

"Yeah I'm pretty sure that viral video of you playing tennis could speak for that." Drew remarked. "Anyway I like writing, jai alai, and shopping."

"So what's your major?" I questioned.

"Sociology actually." Drew replied with a laugh. "What about you? Music?"

"I haven't decided on a major yet." I explained as I pushed some hair out of my eyes. "But I can tell you that it's not going to be music."

"Why not?" Drew asked clutching her pencil as if ready to write.

"Because I want something more challenging." I told her. "Music already comes easy to me and I don't need to go to college for that. I want to learn something new here and I figure that majoring in something other than music gives me the best shot of that."

"Okay yeah that makes sense." She agreed. "What dorm are you staying in?"

"I'm in FloMo." I replied. It was short for Florence Moore but everyone on campus called it FloMo so I figured that I should do the same.

"Really what floor?" She asked excitedly. If I had to guess I would say she was also staying there.

"I'm on the second floor." I answered as she lit up even more.

"What room?" She asked.

"234." I said,

"I'm in 232." She responded. "That makes us neighbors."

"So then that would make you Mikayla's roommate?" I asked a little uneasily.

"Yes, why?" Drew responded with a look of confusion on her face.

"Mikayla and I don't really get along." I explained "See she always hated Hannah but also knew me as Miley and she's really upset that I didn't tell her that we were the same person."

"Well I don't quite understand that." Drew commented. "In the few days that I've been living with her, she's been really nice to me."

"I guess she just picks her friends." I remarked as I finished writing my paper. "So are you almost done?"

"Yeah almost." The girl replied as moved her pencil. "Do you wanna do something after we're done?"

I checked the clock on my phone. "Well my roommate and friend should be going to class about now so I guess I'm free." I told her. "What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking maybe we could go get some food." She suggested. "I haven't eaten in a few hours. It doesn't have to be lunch. But I could really go for a bagel right now."

"I think they have those at Starbucks and I guess I could use some coffee right about now." I said as I got up.

Drew got up as well and we walked our papers to the professor's desk.

"Congratulations Ms. Brown, Ms. Stewart." Professor King said, reading Drew's paper because he already knew who I was. "You two are the first ones finished. You girls must have really connected."

The two of us smiled as we walked out the door.

"So he seems like a cool guy." I commented. "All of my high school students were less cool, especially my biology teacher. You know it seems like she was my only teacher sometimes."

""Well my biology teacher was my dad." Drew told me. "Quite a disaster that was."

"At least you didn't have to worry about passing." I joked. "If I was your mother and he failed you, he would not be getting laid."

"Actually…my dad's gay." She informed me. Okay so that joke doesn't work at all.

"Okay then…" I said, needing to change the subject quickly. Not that I had any problems with gay people, especially since I was gay myself. "So, I got A's in all in my classes. I don't think the fact that I had just revealed my secret before graduation had anything to do with it at all."

Drew broke out into a fit of laughter.

"Yeah they probably would have tried to make me valedictorian if they could have." I added as we arrived at the entrance to Starbucks. "But that's a legal thing so they couldn't do that."

"So I never did ask where you were from." Drew stated.

"I thought you would have known from all of the shows." I remarked. "I lived in Malibu but I was practically in LA all of the time."

"I'm from Sacramento." Drew explained. "I only went to LA once and it was a pretty big waste of time."

With that the two of us walked into Starbucks. Drew ordered a caramel macchiato and I got a standard mochaccino. I didn't like to dress up my coffee really. The caffeine was the most important thing to me.

"So what's your roommate like?" Drew asked after we were seated at our table.

"Well my roommate is actually my best friend. We requested them and I know that the people in the office love me." I declared. "Everyone seems to love me."

"Well I completely hate your guts." She replied with a smile to let me know she wasn't seriously.

"That's great because I'm not very fond of you either." I said, barely able to hold my giggles. "But anyway her name is Lilly Truscott and I've known her since I was 11. She was the first person to find out my secret."

"Well I've never had a best friend like that." Drew replied. "Must be nice."

After we were done with our coffee, both of us headed back to the dorm.

"So if you're not busy later, maybe you could join me and Lilly for dinner." I suggested to Drew.

"Yeah sure I'll come by." She agreed before I headed into my room.

The room was, for lack of a better word, a mess. It looked like it had been torn apart. I found Lilly on the floor. She too looked like a mess.

"Lilly, are you okay?" I asked in concern.

"It's gone!" Lilly bawled.

"What's gone?" I questioned.

"My mom's necklace is gone!" She cried.

"Where was the last place that you remember having it?" I questioned.

"I went to the bathroom down the hall and took it off for a shower." Lilly replied.

"Did you check in the bathroom?" I asked.

"Yeah and then I thought I might have left it in the room but it's not here either." The blonde explained.

"Was there anyone else in the bathroom with you?" I asked.

"Just one girl." Lilly said as I waited for her to describe said girl. "She had dark hair almost black and tan skin. She was gone when I was finished."

"Okay so the first thing we need to do is see if we can find this girl." I suggested. "Why don't we check the dorm Facebook page to see if we can find her?"

Lilly wiped her nose. "Okay" She agreed.

I took out my laptop and opened up the page. After going through a few pages, Lilly stuck her finger out.

"That's her!" She exclaimed.

"Helena Grey." I read. "Okay now we need to go to the info desk and get a copy of her schedule."

"You really think they'll do that?" Lilly asked.

"We'll just have to find out." I stated.

I went down to the info desk with a smile on my face.

"Hi, Melanie." I said, reading the girl's name tag. "I was wondering if I could get a schedule."

"Did you lose yours already, Miley?" Melanie asked me.

"Well it's not for me." I replied. "I actually need a schedule for Helena Grey."

"I'm really only supposed to give you yours." Melanie stated.

I saw a pen and a piece of paper. I smiled and signed it.

"Will this change your mind?" I asked as I handed it to her.

The printer started printing suddenly and Melanie handed me Helena's schedule.

"This never happened." Melanie told me and I nodded.

It seemed that Helena was in Art right about now. I walked down to the art building to see if I could catch her coming out of it. That's exactly what happened.

"Helena Grey?" I asked.

"What do you want?" Helena asked. She had a British accent. That was unexpected.

"I was looking my for my friend Lilly's necklace." I answered. "She's blonde about my height. She said you were in the bathroom at FloMo with her this morning."

"If you're insinuating that I took it, then I'm appalled. You Americans think that you know everything and you're nowhere near as good a singer as Adele." Helena replied. "I didn't steal your friend's necklace but someone might have taken it while she was showering and left before she got out. Did you ever consider that?"

"I was claiming that you did take it." I stated, though after her outburst, I was now considering it. "I was just wondering if you've seen it."

I handed her a picture.

"Yes I did see someone wearing a necklace like that." Helena told me. "Fine I'll go and take you to her."

I walked with Helena to the food court and she showed me a blonde girl.

The girl in question was Renee. She claimed that she found the necklace outside our dorm window. She also claimed that it wasn't Lilly's necklace even though it was extremely similar. There was also the fact that she wouldn't let me see the back of the necklace to see if HT was inscribed on it. I definitely did not trust her and I would have to find a way of looking into this.

I returned to the info desk and saw that Melanie was still there.

"You don't need another schedule do you?" Melanie asked.

"No I just need to know if there's a girl named Renee staying in this dorm." I told her.

"There's a girl named Renee in room 225, why?" Melanie responded.

"I think she may have stolen my friend's necklace. There's not any way I can get access to her room, is there?" I questioned with a smile.

Melanie was able to let me into her room. I noticed a rather interesting sign on the door. It said 'Helena and Renee's room'. We look inside and saw about 6 cellphones, 3 laptops and a Gameboy DS.

"I'll call campus police." Melanie stated.

So Renee and Helena walked back to their room to get a rude awakening. It turned out that were grabbing whatever they could find. I grabbed Lilly's necklace off Renee's necklace and sure enough the letters were there. It seems that I just solved a mystery and was kind of fun doing it. Maybe I could major in criminal justice or something. It was just a thought for now.

So about a week later, I was eating lunch with Lilly and Drew.

"So do you wanna see my boyfriend Oliver's show tonight?" Lilly asked Drew. I had filled Drew in on Lilly's and Oliver's relationship and Oliver's Music career.

"No thanks, I don't really go for those American Idol types." Drew responded. "I am how good can he be if he didn't even make it past Hollywood?"

"Actually he dropped out of the competition to be with Lilly." I explained.

"Oh that's really romantic then." Drew remarked. "I don't know how smart it was but it was definitely romantic."

"Oliver is a good singer." I remarked. "I did put him through. He just chose to leave to be Lilly."

"You're not going to change my mind." Drew declared. "Besides I have a date tonight. A pretty hot date if you know what I mean."

"Probably more than we needed to know." I muttered. "Okay then have fun tonight."

That night, I decided that I would go by a little early to talk to Oliver before the show. The room wasn't very crowded. A few people were there including Amber and Ashley much to my chagrin. I noticed my favorite donut and went over to give him a hug.

"Hey Miles." Oliver greeted. "I think you made the right call by coming back here."

"I think so too." I agreed. "So how do you like touring?"

"It's a little hard being away from Lilly so much." Oliver stated. "That's why I'm glad you're around."

Would he be saying that if he knew I was in love with Lilly?

"So we gotta do the sound check right about now so it's gonna get really loud." Oliver said. I knew what a sound check was like.

"I'll go get a drink and come back when you're done." I told him as I left the room. I went to concession stand and heard music playing before I heard something that sounded like an explosion. Man that was a good effect.

It wasn't until after I returned that I noticed the people outside looking on in horror. That hadn't been a fake explosion. It was a real one. Everyone who had been inside the room was dead.

Okay so that was an intense first chapter. Yes Oliver is dead. I'm pretty sure that this is not how Hannah Montana would have continued but I don't care. I also know that I probably made a few things up about Stanford but FloMo is a real residence hall. Now for character introduction. Drew is played by JoJo. Professor King is played by Bradley Cooper but he's a better teacher than Phil. Melanie is played by Ashley Greene. And Helena and Renee are played by Naomi Scott and Aimee Teagarden. Oh and don't make any guesses at this point in your review. But do review. Please do review.


	2. Here We Blow Again

Okay so remember how I said that everyone died. Scratch that. There was one survivor and it was probably the person I least wanted to: Amber Addison. Not that I would wish death on her but if I could pick anyone else, I would. Anyway she was technically alive. She was unconscious but still breathing and rushed to Stanford University Medical Center. Curiously Ashley wasn't in the room at the time for some reason. It left 8 casualties: Oliver, the three members of his band, a tech guy, and 3 students that I didn't know anything about.

I had never seen such carnage in all my life. Word of what the university was calling an accident quickly spread throughout the campus. I don't know how I was going to break it to Lilly. I knew that she would be devastated by this. There was no way I was going to even think about getting with her at the moment. What I really wanted to do was find out how this happened. I entered the room where the Palo Alto chief was standing.

"So what do you think caused this?" I asked him.

"Well it's none of your business but we think it was pyrotechnics malfunction." He said. I noticed on uniform that it said Sampson. I also wasn't buying his theory.

"It was a soundcheck." I pointed out. "Why on Earth would they be testing pyrotechnics? Oh and it is my business since the singer who died was my friend."

"Well I'm sorry for your loss but this was an accident." Sampson responded. "Why don't you tell me what you think happened?"

"I don't know maybe something put a bomb in there." I stated matter-of-factly. "You know maybe this was an act of terrorism. Definitely doesn't seem like an accident."

"Maybe it wasn't some meaningless singer's show, I would agree with you." He remarked. I wanted to punch him for saying that about Oliver. "Like if it was one of your shows. Now if you accuse me, I have better things to do then chat with some teen pop singer."

Okay so my first impression of this guy is he's a dick. I also don't care what he said. This was no accident. I just needed to find out who did and why. But I knew I wouldn't have time to do that right now. I would need to console Lilly. I started to walk back to FloMo.

When I got back to our room, I noticed that Drew was already there, doing her best to console Lilly. She looked that she didn't have a clue what she was doing. I quickly took my friend from her and hugged her as she cried.

"So do you see what happened?" Drew asked while Lilly wept.

"I didn't see it but I heard it." I explained. "I thought it was just an effect at first."

"I think I heard someone survived." Drew remarked. "I only caught a glimpse of it before coming here."

"Yeah this girl I knew from Malibu was unconscious but breathing." I told them.

"AMBER?" Lilly wailed "WOW DOES AMBER GET TO LIVE WHEN MY OLLYPOP DIED?"

"I don't know, Lilly." I said, patting her on the back. "Now calm down. You're acting hysterical."

"I think right now the best thing you can do is sleep." Drew suggested to Lilly. "You'll probably have bad dreams but crying all night won't accomplish anything. That's how I got through my dad's death."

"That might not work for Lilly." I remarked. "Everyone deals with death differently I've heard. Of course I was pretty young when my mom died, so I can't be used as the best example."

"I think I'm gonna try it." Lilly announced. "I don't feel like doing anything else."

"Okay we'll be quiet while you do that." I replied and Drew nodded her head.

Once Lilly was asleep, Drew spoke up. "So I think someone needs to stay with her at all times for the next few days." She suggested.

"Why?" I questioned.

"Because she may try to kill herself." Drew explained. "I was put on suicide watch last year when my dad died and I wasn't even thinking about killing myself. We definitely need to keep her away from any sharp objects."

"You really think that she would try to kill herself?" I questioned.

"I did a report on suicide for my high school sociology class and I know that some people feel the need when a significant other dies to kill themselves to be with them." Drew explained before there was a knock on the door.

I went to answer it to see Melanie.

"I just needed to tell you that classes have been cancelled for the next week." Melanie informed us. "And anyone who was closely affected by the tragedy can take an additional week off."

I nodded and the RA left and closed the door. I decided that I would share my theory with Drew.

"So I don't think this was an accident." I remarked.

"You don't?" Drew asked in surprise.

"No I mean why would anyone test their pyrotechnics during a soundcheck?" I asked. "Most of those only have one shot so using them up early wouldn't make any sense."

"What do you think it was?" She asked curiously, getting up from my bed.

"I think someone could have caused the explosion." I stated, to which she gasped.

"Who do you think did it?" She inquired.

"I don't know it could have even been the tech guy." I answered. "But I want to see if I can find out. Would you be willing to babysit Lilly?"

"Sure." Drew commented.

All of a sudden, I got a call from Daddy.

"I should take this." I replied as I went outside the room. "Hi Daddy."

"I just heard the news and wanted to make sure that you're okay." He said.

"I'm fine, Daddy. I was outside of the room when the explosion happened." I explained to him.

"Is Lilly okay?" He asked.

"Well she wasn't even there but I wouldn't say that she's okay." I responded. "She's really upset by it."

"So how has the rest of college been going for you?" He asked.

"It's going well." I told him. "I like most of my classes and have already made a new friend. Oh and I stopped a pair of thieves in my dorm."

"That sounds different." He commented. "Well tell Lilly that everything is going to be okay. I don't know if it will help but sometimes it's just good to hear it. I love you."

"I love you too, Daddy. Bye." I said as I hung up.

The next day I was returning from breakfast when something interesting happened. I was approached by a girl that I never met.

"Hey you're Miley Stewart." She said to me. Her voice was kind of high pitch.

"I don't have a pen on me but I'd be happy to take a picture with you." I replied.

"I'm actually not here as a fan." She remarked. "My name is Carrie Bradshaw. Yes, the same as the _Sex and the City_ character. I've gotten my share of flak for it. Anyway I heard you were responsible for catching the girls that were stealing stuff. I wanted to thank you for getting laptop back."

"Well you're welcome." I told her as I walked towards the stairs. Before I got to the first step, her hand was on my shoulder.

"I also need your help." Carrie added as I turned to look at her. "You see I'm majoring in Music Technology. This morning we found our room vandalized. People seem to think that Andre, the guy working the show was responsible for accident. He was a graduate here. I need you to prove that he wasn't."

"I'm not really experienced in crime solving." I explained.

"I'll give you $300 if you can prove he didn't do it." Carrie offered. "I don't want our program forever tarnished."

"I'll see what I can do." I agreed as I walked up to my room. When I got there, there was a note from Drew. Apparently she and Lilly were in the shower. Probably not together but Drew was probably keeping a close eye on Lilly to make sure that she didn't try anything. How one would kill their self in the shower, I don't know but maybe it was to insure that Lilly was indeed going to the shower.

I got on my laptop and decided to look up to see who the Music Technology professor. I figured that would be a good place to start. Hopefully he was there when Andre was a student. My search led me to Abel Tyson. I decided that I should stop by his classroom to see if he could tell me anything. Just as I was about to go, the door opened and Lilly walked in wearing her bathrobe, her sexy Victoria's Secret bathrobe I might add.

"So why exactly is Drew following me around?" Lilly asked.

"Well she's just making that you're okay." I replied. It was half-true anyway. I just left out the suicide watch part.

"What does she think that I might try to kill myself or something?" The blond asked.

I remained silent.

"Miley?" She asked.

"Well kind of." I answered truthfully. "We both thought that you shouldn't be left alone because you might try to commit suicide."

"Why would you two possibly think that?" Lilly yelled at me. Something was telling me that the decision that Drew and I made last night was not the right call.

"Well she said that loss of a loved one is one of the leading causes of suicide." I responded. "Can you tell me that you haven't thought about it?"

"Well yeah, I've thought about it." Lilly admitted. "But then I thought to myself that's not what Oliver would want."

"Well still, having friends will help you right now." I told her as there was a knock on the door. It was most likely Drew. "I have some things to do today so I can't hang out. Maybe the two of you can watch a movie or something."

"What are you doing?" Lilly asked as I opened the door for Drew.

"I'm doing someone a favor, let's leave it at that." I replied, smiling at Drew. I then whispered into her ear. "Lilly knows now but you should still spend time with her."

Drew nodded as I walked out the door.

I made my way over to the music building. Supposedly most of the professors were in their offices and I happened to find a curly-haired man in his mid-40s. He was average looking at best. I knocked on his door and he turned to look at me.

"Can I help you?" He asked.

"Yes I was wondering if you knew Andre, the technician from the show last night." I stated.

"Andre was one of my best students during his time here." The professor praised.

"Did he ever have any problems with the equipment?" I asked.

"No he always managed to handle that well." He told me.

"What about pyrotechnics? Did he ever work with those?" I asked.

"Andre actually did his senior project on a pyrotechnic display." The professor filled me in. "It went extraordinarily well. He was the only student to get an A on that project. Also there shouldn't have any pyrotechnics involved. They were banned for small venues after The Great White Club Fire in 2003."

I stared blankly at him because I had no idea what that was.

""Basically this band called Great White was performing a show at a nightclub in Rhode Island. The band manager let off some pyrotechnics and the foam sound absorbers caught ablaze. 100 people died including the band guitarist." He explained I guess I hadn't heard of this since it was 2003 and I was 11 but I probably should have learned about that at some point.

"So then the explosion couldn't have been caused by pyrotechnics." I deduced.

"Not necessarily." Professor Tyson pointed out. "The law isn't always enforced. Also I didn't oversee this particular show. You'll need to see Professor Lunsford about that. She's currently out to lunch right now but should be back within an hour."

I nodded and left the room. I figured that it might be a good time to get some lunch right about now. As I was eating my pizza, Carrie walked up to me again. Well it would probably be more accurate to say she took a seat next to me.

"So have you found anything out yet?" She asked.

"Only that pyrotechnics are illegal in small venues." I answered. "Professor Tyson didn't really know anything about the show."

"Professor Tyson always goes to church on Sunday nights." Carrie responded. "Going to him was probably a waste of time."

"Well you didn't exactly tell me where to start." I pointed out.

"Well a good place would be to go to our room to see who vandalized it." Carrie commented "Or maybe you could talk to Professor Lunsford since she was supposed to be overseeing the show after all."

"Professor Lunsford is out right now so why don't you show me to your classroom?" I suggested as I finished my pizza.

"That I can do." Carrie agreed. She led me back to the building. She led me to the room and used a key that she had to open the door. That was definitely interesting. So someone would have to have a key to get in.

"Who all has those keys?" I asked.

"Just the other students in this class." Carrie replied before realizing what I was getting at. "But none of them would do anything because it would get them kicked out of the program."

I looked into the room and was a little shocked at what I saw. Someone had spray-painted 'MURDER' on the stage. The piano cover was split in two. Several lights were on the floor and a floor mike was well…on the floor.

"As you can see, someone really did a number on the place." Carrie commented as I began to walk around the room. After a few steps, I noticed a pink piece of paper on the floor. I walked over and picked it up of the floor. "Did you find a clue?"

"What's Rho Beta Phi?" I asked as I looked at the sign for the barbecue.

"That's the audio recording Fraternity." Carrie explained looking at the flier. This is for their Barbecue tonight."

"And I'm betting that our culprit is going to be there." I stated. "We should go there and see if we can find them. Have you reported this to campus police?"

"I want to wait until we have identified a perp to do that." Carrie explained, walking over to the piano. "You know I really liked that piano. I used to come in here late at night and play it by myself."

I was about to ask if anyone had seen her do it or maybe if she left the door open last night when there was an interruption.

"What's going on in here?" a female voice asked.

"Nothing Professor Lunsford." Carrie remarked. "I was just showing Miley the damage to the room."

"You're Professor Lunsford?" I asked as the woman nodded. "I need to talk to you about the set up for the show last night."

"If you must we can talk about it in my office." The teacher offered. "Carrie, I don't want anyone using this room till it gets cleaned up."

I followed her to her office and took a seat.

"So what do you need to ask me?" She asked.

"Well you wouldn't happen to know if there were supposed to be any pyrotechnics at the show last night, would you?"

"We've never had an indoor show with pyrotechnics while I've been here." Professor Lunsford explained. "I also inspected the set before the show?"

"Why weren't you in the room during the soundcheck?" I inquired.

"I don't really like loud music and I felt that Andre had everything under control." She explained. Now that sounded a little shady "So I headed to the bathroom."

"Thank you." I remarked as I left the room. I found Carrie. "So no pyrotechnics were involved. Should I wait until after we catch this person to go to the police?"

"I think we can call the police after we get a confession." Carrie suggested. "I'll give your money then."

I headed back to dorm to see Drew and Lilly were watching _Dear John. _God I hate those Nicholas Sparks movies.

"Sorry to interrupt but would the two of you be interested going to a barbecue at the Rho Beta Phi house tonight?" I asked.

"Sounds good." Drew replied. She turned to Lilly. "Are you up for a little fun?"

"Okay!" Lilly beamed. The fact that she seemed to be in a good mood even for a moment was good.

"Great." I said. "Now if you excuse me I can't stand this movie."

I walked out into the hallway…and there was Mikayla. Maybe if I keep quiet she won't see me.

"Hey Miley." She said. Okay there goes that but she didn't seem at all hostile. She seemed to reflect the side of Mikayla I had only seen once before. "I'm sorry that your friend died."

"Thanks Mikayla. That means a lot." I replied.

That night, I walked into the house with Carrie, Lilly, and Drew.

"This place looks awesome." Lilly commented as she headed for the food. Drew followed behind her.

"So is there anyone in particular that you think we should ask?" Carrie questioned.

"I have an idea." I said as I walked over to this Mexican guy. "Hey have you heard about how the music tech room was destroyed?"

"Yeah that's a real shame." He replied. "I can't wait till they catch the person who did it. I wonder they managed to do that."

"Oh it seems like forgot let me remind you." I replied.

"Miley, that's Martin." Carrie responded. "He's in the tech program."

"Which means that he has a key needed to get in." I pointed out. "I asked Professor Lunsford for a list of all students who have a key. I found it interesting that Andre's brother was also in the program. So I checked his Facebook and found a message that said 'RIP Bro even in death you manage to outshine me.'"

"That doesn't prove that I did it." Martin rebutted.

"No but that spray paint on jeans does." I countered. "You think that you would you would change your pants after vandalizing your own classroom."

Carrie walked over and slapped him in the face. "You destroyed my piano." She declared.

"It was a piece of junk anyway." Martin spat.

"And that would be the confession." I stated as I stopped recording on my phone.

The Campus Police I had called came and arrested Martin and held him till the city police arrived. The chief was not there, so I followed the car back to the station. I walked and found the chief.

"There were no pyrotechnics at the show." I told him. "I have a witness who can confirm this."

"Lovely." The chief said. "But the case is still closed."

So Chief Sampson is definitely a dick. He is played by Michael Fassbender. As for the other characters in this chapter, Carrie is played by Vanessa Lengies (Sugar from Glee). Professor Tyson is played by John C. Reilly, Professor Lunsford (Renee from Twilight) is played by Sarah Clarke and Martin is played by Ramon Rodriguez (Leo from Transformers 2). So not is it certain that murder is the case but who did it. You need to keep reading and reviewing to find out


	3. Bad Bad Boyfriend

If the police weren't going to focus on solving the case, that means I am going to figure out who caused the explosion by myself. Unfortunately due to not having useful information the list of suspects is exponential. There are over 15000 students at Stanford and almost 2000 employees. And that doesn't even include people who aren't affiliated with the university. So all I know is that someone set off a bomb. I don't know how. It could have been someone in the room even. It's been a week since the explosion and classes were starting up again. Lilly was taking the extra week of and would be having some counseling sessions. I, however, was going to go to class. I didn't want to fall behind.

I walked into Professor King's class and tried to find a seat next to Drew, only to find out that she wasn't there yet. I placed my stuff down so I could save a seat for her. She walked in just before the professor closed the door and took a seat next to me.

"Just made it." I whispered.

"We can talk about it after class." Drew said.

"So welcome back everyone." Professor King said. "I hope most of you did something productive with your time off class."

I would definitely say that I did. I don't know if anyone had done anything more productive.

"Anyway we're gonna take from culture and will be discussing how the accident at the concert is affecting each of you. I personally knew one of the students that died and betting at least a few of you did as well." He continued. "I am going to show you two clips of reactions from the campus tragedies of Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois. I know that these were both shootings but the results were still the same."

The videos weren't exactly helpful because in both cases there was a resolution. In this case, the killer was likely still at large and could have been planning his next move. That was one deduction that I probably could make, the killer was probably male. That's how it usually goes. Unfortunately that still leaves too many possible suspects. Both documentaries were about half an hour long so by the time they were done, class was almost over.

"Okay so we're going to resume culture on Wednesday." Professor King remarked as everyone started to get up. "I need all of you to read pages 25-35 and have a good rest of the day."

I walked out of the room with Drew and decided to ask her what was on her mind.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I think my boyfriend might be cheating on me." Drew stated. "Do you think you can find out if he is? You seem like you'd be good at it."

"Drew, I didn't sign up for this when came here." I told her as the two of us walked toward to cafeteria. "Why do you think that he's cheating on you anyway?"

"Well he didn't want to have with me last night or this morning." She explained as I looked at her skeptically. "Look if you prove that he's not, I'd be fine with that. I just want to know why he's so secretive."

"I guess I can give it a shot." I agreed. I then remembered what happened last time I did this. "Where do you want me to start?"

"Well I'm going to meet him today after my classes are over." She replied. "What I want from you is to see if you can follow him around some. You know maybe see if he's flirting with other girls or something."

"Do you have a picture of him or anything?" I asked as Drew took out her cell and scrolled through her pictures.

"This is him." She responded as she showed me a picture of a blonde-haired boy. I had seen him before.

"He's in my Geometry class." I stated. "I can follow him around a little and keep an eye on him while he's in class."

"I also left my jacket in his dorm." Drew told me. "Try to convince him to let you go in there so you can do a little snooping."

I nodded before I realized something. "You know, you never told me his name."

"It's Bryan." Drew responded.

After lunch, I walked back to our dorm. I saw Melanie at the front desk again and decided to see if Lilly was here or not.

"Hey Melanie, do you if Lilly came by recently?" I asked.

"I haven't seen her." Melanie responded.

"So you're a student here, right?" I asked.

"Yes all of the RAs are students." Melanie explained. "We all go to classes just like you. I'm currently a junior majoring in Health Science."

"That answers my next question." I responded with a laugh. She giggled along with me.

"So have you decided on a major yet?" Melanie asked.

"I think my major decided itself." I declared. "I'm probably going to take some Criminal Justice classes next semester."

"That would definitely be an interesting career change." Melanie commented. "From global music sensation to police officer."

"Oh I wouldn't want to be a police officer." I stated. "If I were to go into the field, I would probably be a private eye. I would not have to listen to anyone if I was that. And I'd probably get paid more."

"You realize you probably have enough money to last the rest of your life, don't you?" Melanie pointed out.

"It would also be easier to leave if I wanted to go back to my old life." I replied as Lilly walked into the dorm. "Well I'll talk to you later."

I walked over to Lilly with a smile on my face. "Hey how did the counseling session go?" I asked

"They want to put me on antidepressants." Lilly remarked. "I don't want to go on antidepressants. I do not need to take any depressants!"

"I take it you disagreed." I joked as I hugged Lilly. "If you don't think that you need them then you don't have to get them. So, I don't have class until later. What do you want to do?"

"Ooh let's play Dance Central." Lilly replied as she dragged me to our room. I actually cannot believe that I allowed one of songs to be put in that game. Lilly loved even though she was pretty bad at any dance at required a tempo. Slow dancing she could do but fast dancing…I'll just say that sucks and get it over with.

We must have played the game for at least an hour. Normally it would annoy me but I loved it when Lilly smiled, especially in a time like this. I don't know what my world hold but I was definitely enjoying the moment with her. I wished I didn't have to go to class and could've just stayed with her, holding her close to me.

"So I think I'm gonna go to class tomorrow." Lilly stated which shocked me a little.

"Are you sure?" I questioned. "You know you don't have to go back until next week, don't you?"

"But I would have to go more counseling and I really don't want to do that." She pointed out. "I think going back to class would help me move on. I can't keep letting this rule my life. I'm not ready to date again but I'm not gonna just lay down and die."

"Okay you should probably go back then." I agreed. "But know that I'm here for you if it ever gets too hard."

"You always have been." Lilly said with a smile. "Thanks for being my best friend. I don't think I would be able to get through this if you had die too."

She was tearing up at the last part.

"I'm not going anywhere, Lilly." I assured her. "Except to class."

"I'll see you when you get done." Lilly said.

"Actually…you probably won't" I explained. "Drew asked me to tail her boyfriend to see if he's cheating her."

"These detective cases keep popping up." The blonde commented as I walked to my next class.

I sat down, keeping a close eye on Bryan. I had to make it look like I wasn't staring. Luckily I was sitting behind him, so I got a great view of everything that was going on.

He seemed to be paying attention to the Asian professor doing math. That's one of the disadvantages of signing up late. You always get the teachers who either can't speak English or can't speak it well. Anyway, he seemed focused on the teacher and not any of the girls around him. So if he is cheating, it's not with a girl from this class.

You may think that being a creative person, I struggle at math. That is actually not the case. I am great at math. I probably should have helped Lilly about a year and a half ago when she was struggling but I didn't have time and I'm not very good at explaining it.

When class was over, I followed Bryan out of the door. He did end up talking to a few girls but there didn't appear to be any romantic or flirtatious undertones to his words. He appeared to be just being friendly with the girls and there was nothing wrong with a guy having female friends. Still I needed to check his room. Just because the signs point to him not cheating doesn't mean that he's not. He could just hide it well.

Once he was alone, I decided to walk up to him.

"So you're Bryan, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?" Bryan responded.

"I'm a friend of Drew's." I told him. "She left her jacket in your room. I was wondering if I could go back with you to get it."

"Yeah, sure." He answered. "I'll take you down there right now."

I followed Bryan down to his dorm room, hoping that he wouldn't try to seduce me when we got back there. His room was a little bit messy and his roommate was not in at the time.

"Now let's see if I can find that jacket." He declared as he started to look for it and I started to look around the room. One of my first observations was he had a lot of burned CDs. Then I noticed a ticket stub from last night.

"You saw _Contagion _last night?" I asked.

"Yeah." He replied without turning to face me as he started to look through the closet.

"Why didn't you ask Drew to go with you?" I challenged. The fact that he went to movie was starting to look suspicious, as was a picture of a girl on his dresser.

"I didn't think she would want to see it and I didn't really have money to pay for her." Bryan said as he grabbed something.

"So who's this?" I asked, grabbing the picture as he started to walk toward me with the jacket in hand.

"That would be my little sister Keira." Bryan replied, snatching the framed photograph and giving me the jacket. I stood there for a second. "You can go now."

So I decided that I would go back and report my findings to Drew. On my way, I checked Facebook and was able to confirm that Keira was in fact his sister. I walked back to her room and knocked on the door.

It was answered by the person that I wanted to talk to less. "What do you want?" Mikayla asked. It seemed that now she was done showing me sympathy, she was back to hating me again.

"I was wanting to talk to Drew. I have her jacket." I stated. "Is she here right now?"

"She's not." Mikayla responded, crossing her arms.

"Can I wait for her?" I asked, trying to not look at how little Mikayla was wearing: a tank top and a pair of boxers that she may or may not have had anything under.

"I guess." She replied begrudgingly. I took a seat on Drew's bed to wait for her, debating whether or not to talk to Mikayla. I decided that I would.

"So how are you classes going?" I asked.

"Fine." Mikayla answered "But I don't know why you're talking to me."

"Maybe I'm just trying to be friendly." I suggested. "Like I was when we first met. I offered you my friendship and you rejected me. The least you could do is give me a real reason why."

"I told you that it was because I hated your music." Mikayla told me.

"That's not a reason not to like me as a person." I responded. "Lilly's tone deaf and I was never the biggest fan of Oliver's music but doesn't mean that I still couldn't be friends with them."

"Well you did lie." She added.

"That was before you even knew me." I rebutted. "And it was always meant to be a secret."

"Did Jake know?" She questioned.

"That was something different." I said as Mikayla glared at me. "I was dating Jake when I told him. I wasn't dating you. So will you just tell me why?"

"It was Margot's idea." Mikayla admitted. "She wanted to create a rivalry between us. The fact that she dropped me after my album tanked makes me wonder why I ever listened to her. So I guess that was a bad idea. You could have endorsed me. We could have toured together. We could fooled around in a hotel together."

"What?" I asked, catching the last part.

"Nothing…nothing." Mikayla said quickly. Before I could further interrogate her, the door started to open. Drew walked into the room and Mikayla rushed out.

"Why is she in such a rush?" Drew asked as I shrugged my shoulders. "So did you find anything out about Bryan?"

"Well he didn't appear in any other girls in the class and wasn't flirting with any outside of class either." I explained. "However I was able to find a ticket stub for a movie night."

"He went to a movie without me?" She asked angrily.

"He said he didn't have money for you and thought you didn't want to go but I think he could have gone with someone else or maybe met someone there. I was gonna go to the movie theatre tonight and check."

"Yeah that sounds like a good idea." Drew agreed. "I would join you but he is taking me out to eat tonight."

"I'll let you as soon as I find out." I promised.

So after dinner, I headed down to the Regal Hacienda 20, which was what the ticket. It wasn't very crowded, probably because it was a weeknight. I took out my phone as I went towards the box office and showed the person at the register a picture of Bryan.

"Did you see this guy last night?" I asked.

"Yeah he was here last night." The girl at the box office replied. "Why?"

"Did he come in with anybody?" I asked, hoping the girl would be able to tell me.

"No he came in alone." She informed me. Okay that didn't work so I should move on to plan B.

"Is there any way I could look at the security tapes from inside the theatre?" I asked.

"I'm really not supposed to let you see those." She replied.

"Please he's my boyfriend and I know that he went to a movie last night without me." I responded. I knew it would be better to appeal to emotions if it were more personal. "I think that he might be cheating on me and I want to know for sure."

"Well maybe if you listen to my demo, I'll let you up there." The girl suggested. So she was bargaining with me. I could definitely listen, even though I wasn't in contact with my label anymore. \

"Yeah I could do that?" I agreed as the girl took me to wear they keep the security tapes. I took a seat as she began to scroll through the list of footage.

"What movie was he seeing?" She asked.

"_Contagion, _I think it was theater 10." I explained as she found me the footage. "At 6:00."

I looked over at the screen and I saw Bryan and some other people walk into the theatre. I fast-forwarded a little, seeing no girl with him. I guess I could tell Drew that he wasn't cheating on her. Just to be sure, I fast-forwarded through the trailers and saw something that I completely didn't expect. As soon as the movie started, he took a video camera out of his bag. He wasn't cheating on Drew. He was pirating movies. Those CDs must have also been films he filmed.

"I'm going to have to call the police on your boyfriend." The girl said.

"I'll make sure to lead them to him." I promised. I was able to get the information from the restaurant that Drew was at and then led the police officers, including Chief Sampson to there.

"Okay I need to talk to him before you arrest him." I told the cops. "I am not going to warn him though."

I walked into the restaurant and found where Drew and Bryan were sitting. They looked like they were waiting for their food.

"So I found out that Bryan is not cheating you." I said in front of him.

"Of course I'm not cheating on you." Bryan stated. "I can't believe you thought I was. We are so through."

"I also found out that Bryan here has a certain hobby." I remarked. "You see he likes to record movies. That happens to be a felony."

"I can't believe you!" Drew yelled at him.

"You don't have any proof of that." Bryan claimed. "This is slander."

"Actually I've seen the tapes of you filming a movie last night." I stated. "And I have the police waiting for you."

Bryan got up and started to run. He wasn't able to get far because he was grabbed by the police.

"So is this seat taken?" I asked Drew. She smiled as I sat down.

The next day after my English class was over, the professor walked up to me.

"Miley, do you have a sec?" She asked.

"Yes, Professor Green?" I asked.

"The music program was organizing a tribute concert for everyone who died." She stated. "They asked me to see if you were interested in performing."

"Sure I would love to do that." I answered, thinking it might give me some time to search for clues in the room of the explosion.

"Great it's on Friday at 7:00." She told me.

So on Friday night, I arrived extra early. I snuck into the room where the concert had been held with a flashlight to look for clues. What I found was interesting. It was a student ID from Martin Esposito.

So this chapter confirms that Lilly and Drew were not together. It also gives us a look into Mikayla. Not much was made towards solving the case except for finding the ID. I was also like to point out that his name is pronounced Mar-TEEN. Please don't forget to review


	4. Drop! In the Name of Love

I checked twice to make sure that it was Martin's ID and not Andre's but it was definitely the former's. Why would Martin's ID be in here? I mean it could have just been because Andre had borrowed his brother's ID but what if that wasn't it. I didn't have much time in there because I needed to get out so I could get ready for the concert. But now I at least had a suspect. I don't know exactly how I was going to use this since Martin had been expelled but I had a suspect and maybe I could at least get some answers out of him.

I walked outside where they were doing the concert and sure enough, Mikayla was there. I suppose if they were looking for multiple people to perform tributes, they would ask her as well. I was asked to close the show because I was the biggest name. I had decided to sing a song by The Fray.

_Step one you say "we need to think"  
>He walks you say "sit down it's just a talk"<br>He Smiles politely back at you,  
>You stare politely right on through<em>

_Some sort of window to a rite  
>He goes left and you stay right<br>Between the lines you fear the blame  
>You begin to wonder why you came<em>

_Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
>Somewhere along in the bitterness<br>And I would have stayed up with you all night  
>Had I known how to save a life<em>

_Let him know that you know best  
>Cause after all you do know best<br>Try to slip past his defense  
>Without granting innocence<em>

_Lay down a list of what is wrong  
>Things you told him all along<br>Pray to God he hears you  
>And pray to God he hears you<em>

_Chorus_

_As he begins to raise his voice  
>You Lower yours, grant him one last choice<br>Drive until you lose the road  
>A break with the ones who follow<em>

_He will do one of two things  
>He will admit to everything<br>I can't say, he's just not the same  
>And you'll begin to wonder why you came<em>

_Chorus  
>Chorus<em>

The crowd began to cheer as I sang through my tears. I know it was raising money but I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. All it did was bring back memories of Oliver. Now I definitely wanted to see whoever was responsible for this brought to justice. I would need to find out more information about Martin and confront him tomorrow. How I would manage to do that and still go to my classes, I'm not sure.

I went back to the dorm and took out my laptop. Perhaps Martin's Facebook was still there and I could use that to locate him. I don't think he would respond to an email or a wall post, so I would have to confront him. It turned out that he worked at Kinko's now. I knew this because there was a group. I decided to choose one of the other members of the group and all if they knew when he was getting off tomorrow.

It turned out that he got off at 5:00 so I would have time to talk to him.

The next morning, after I was done with my class, I was approach by a girl with blonde hair.

"I hear you solve mysteries." She stated. How exactly were all of these people finding out about this? "Word is starting to get around campus after you helped capture that movie pirate. I'm Taylor."

"What do you need?" I replied with a sigh.

"I went to my Fiction Writing class this morning and my teacher said she was surprised to see me because I had apparently dropped the class." Taylor explained.

"But you didn't drop the class?" I asked.

"No." The girl replied.

"Did you tell the professor that?" I asked.

"Yeah and she said that she couldn't let me back in unless someone admits to forging my signature." She explained. "I can still go to the class but I will not get a grade so that would be kind of pointless."

"And you want me to find out who did it?" I asked.

"Yes I also you need you to get a confession." Taylor added as she grabbed my hand. She held it pretty tightly. "It would mean a lot to me if you did that."

"Not to be rude, but what's in it for me?" I asked. "I need some form of payment because I am kind of busy."

"Well I could buy you dinner from a really nice restaurant." Taylor offered. It sounded a little like she was promising me a date but I wasn't going to accuse her of doing so to risk offending her.

"I'll do it but I do have some other things that I need to take care of." I responded. "It may take me a few days to figure out."

"Just do it as soon as you can." Taylor assured me as she walked away. She was definitely hot. If she did like me, I could see us potentially dating. Lilly was still grieving over Oliver and I wasn't even sure if she was attracted to girls. I could I give someone else a shot at least to bide my time until I'm with Lilly.

After my classes were over, I headed down to Kinko's. I got there a little before 5:00 so I decided to wait outside until Martin walked out. I was holding his ID in my hand. A few minutes after quitting time, he walked out the door.

"Hello." I said to him.

"Haven't you already ruined my life enough?" Martin asked.

"I want to know why your ID was in the room where the explosion happened." I told him.

"So now you're accusing me of killing my own brother along with a group of other people that I didn't care about?" He asked spitefully.

"I'm not accusing you of anything, I just want some answers." I countered. "What were you doing in there?"

"You know I could tell you but I'm not going to." He spat.

"I could take this to the police." I replied.

"Go right ahead, you don't have any proof that I did anything other than some circumstantial evidence." Martin responded as he walked out to his car. I decided that maybe I should try to follow him.

As soon as he started his car, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Someone had planted a bomb and now I was back to square one. I mean it's possible that he still did it and this was an act of revenge but I couldn't exactly prove that either. Well I guess I should start working on Taylor's case.

I got away as fast as I legally could because I didn't want to be around when the cops showed up. There really wasn't much I could say. His car blew up. I didn't see who did it. I headed back to the dorm room so I could talk to Lilly about what I found, even if it didn't go anywhere.

"So I found a suspect." I said as I walked into the room.

"What happened?" Lilly questioned.

"Well I tried confronting him but he wouldn't give me any answers." I explained. "And then he blew up…car bomb."

"Here?" Lilly asked in fear.

"No it was at a Kinko's." I responded. "So as of right now, I have no idea who did it."

"Maybe this is a sign that you should give up." Lilly suggested.

"Don't you want to know who did it?" I asked, actually stunned by her response. "Don't you want to see them punished for what they did?"

"That won't bring Oliver back." Lilly replied. "I also don't want you to get killed trying to figure it out."

"I won't." I promised Lilly as I gave her a hug. "I am gonna find out who did this."

"Be careful." Lilly instructed me.

I walked out into the common room where I was met by Drew.

"Hey." Drew said as she embraced me. "What's up?"

"Well right now I'm trying to find someone who forged a drop slip and got another student kicked out of a class." I explained to her. I decided I wouldn't tell her about Martin since that was a dead end.

"You know for someone who apparently doesn't like doing this, you're sure good at it." Drew commented. "Anyway I wanted to thank you for revealing that my boyfriend was a criminal. I think I'm over boys. It's like the movies create a giant standard for them that they never live up to."

"Yeah that is pretty much true." I agreed. "That's one of the reasons why I'm not looking."

"So what do you look for in a girl, if you don't mind me asking?" Drew asked which caused my cheeks to turn red.

"Well I don't really know." I admitted. "I'm kind of new to the whole female-female dating pool and I've never actually gone out with a girl. I guess I wouldn't want her to be a bitch."

"Way to tell me you're not interested in me?" Drew giggled as she faked a motion of being shot. "Anyway I wasn't asking because I'm interested in you, I was just looking to start somewhere."

"Well I'm sorry that I can't be more help to you." I replied. "So I need to go talk to this professor but maybe we could get some dinner after that."

"Sounds like a plan." Drew agreed.

So I was walking to the office, I realized that the Fiction Writing professor was Professor Green, my English professor. That would make things a little easier since I had a feeling that she liked me.

I walked into the office and knocked on the door.

"Hello Miley, what can I do for you?" She asked.

"I'm actually here to talk about Taylor Roy. She told me that she was dropped from this class morning." I explained. "But she never filled out any drop slip. She's pretty upset from this happening."

"Well I've already had this conversation with her." The professor told me. "Unless she can get someone to confess to doing it, I can't get her back in. The school policy on drops is even if you drop a class by mistake, you can't get back in."

"Would you happen to know anyone who might want her out of the class?" I asked.

"Well there is Nick Russell." The professor responded. "He definitely does not like her but his handwriting looks nothing like Taylor's."

I nodded and walked out the door. I called Drew so I could meet her at the dining hall. After the two of us got our food, which didn't look nearly as good as the food in the cafeteria, Drew was the first to talk.

"So are there any girls that you're interested in school?" Drew asked.

"Well there's this girl Taylor that I'm helping out now." I answered. "She may or may not have promised me a date if I can find out who dropped her from her class."

"What did she say?" Drew asked curiously and attentively. I'm not quite sure why. Did she know this girl and like her as well. "That is if you want to share."

"Well she said that she would take me to a nice dinner." I explained. "Does that sound like she was asking me out?"

"Did the way she said it sound flirty by any chance?" Drew questioned.

"Yeah." I replied, thinking back.

"Then I suggest that you really focus on trying to solve this case." She told me. After dinner, I decided to go to the service and noticed that once again, Melanie was working. It was pretty convenient that she always seemed to be there whenever I needed assistance from her. I walked over with a smile.

"Are you ever gonna come by just to say 'hi'?" Melanie asked. "What do you need?"

"Is there a way that you can tell me which dorm Nick Russell is in?" I asked.

"Fine." Melanie agreed. "He's in Branner Hall Room 356. But you didn't get this information from me. Oh and his sister's in here in Room 212.

"As always." I said to her as I headed down to Branner, which conveniently was the next dorm over.

I was able to sweet talk some of the guys on the floor to let me in and then I went and knocked on Nick's door. Sure enough he was there and answered it.

"Yes?" He asked.

"I'm here to talk about Taylor Roy." I said. "How do you know her?"

"She's in my Fiction Writing and also happens to be happens to be my ex-girlfriend but I don't see why any of this should matter to you."

"You know that someone forged a drop slip with her name on it, don't you?" I asked staring at his eyes.

"As a matter of fact I did not." He replied with a smirk. "Good riddance. That bitch had it coming to her."

"So you're telling me that you had nothing to do with it?" I questioned.

"Although I approve of it, I live by a code of honor and wouldn't do such a thing." Nick responded.

"Why do you hate her so much?" I inquired.

"If you must know she cheated on me with my sister of all people." Nick said as he pushed me out the door. I decided to check Facebook once again and noticed that Taylor's relationship status was single. Then I went and checked Lacey's realized something. It was a good thing that Melanie had told me where her room was.

I went into Lacey's room and she was happy to let me in.

"I'm so glad to finally meet you." Lacey said as she gave me a hug. Hmm this did not seem like a girl who was upset over her recent breakup.

"So you dated Taylor Roy recently, didn't you?" I asked as she nodded. "When did you break up?"

"It was 3 days ago." Lacey responded it. "It was really hard for me."

"What happened?" I questioned.

"Basically my parents are about as anti-gay as they come and also she was technically dating my brother." Lacey explained. "They found us having sex in my room back home. Nick was quick to dump her and my parents threatened to call the cops. They also threatened to disown me. I really liked Taylor but I couldn't lose my family."

So that threw out that theory. I picked up some papers off of her desk and started to read them. Wait a minute, these looked very familiar. I had read these before. I noticed that they were signed and dated by Taylor Roy from a week ago. But I had read these on Professor Green's pay site this afternoon and it had just been posted this morning.

"I know who did it." I said. "Taylor turned this in for her class, didn't she?"

"Yes she did, why?" Lacey replied.

"I need to borrow this." I said as I started to run. I made my way back to Professor Green's room where her night class was ending.

"Miley, did you find out who dropped Taylor from the class?" The woman asked me.

"As a matter of fact I did." I answered. "You know that was a clever move. If Taylor ever found out that you posted her work as yours on your website, you would be in trouble. So you decided to drop her from your class so you can say that you never taught her."

"I don't know what you're talking about." The professor stammered.

"Then explain to me how this story that Taylor submitted wound up on your website this morning." I ordered her. "You didn't think that she would give her girlfriend a copy. Why did you plagiarize your student's story?"

"Because it was better than any that I could have written myself." The professor admitted.

"You really shouldn't have told me how to get Taylor back into the class." I replied as I took out my cellphone and stopped recording.

The next day, I played the message back in front of the dean and Taylor. Professor Green was fired and Taylor was added back to the class roster.

"So my offer still stands." Taylor told me.

"Just to be clear, you were offering to take me out on a date earlier, right?" I asked.

"Actually I was just offering to take you out but we can make a date if you want." Taylor replied. "I wouldn't mind being able to have an actual relationship with a girl."

"I heard about you and Lacey." I stated. "I'm sorry that your relationship had to end that way."

"Well I get it completely." Taylor responded. "Maybe someday her parents will accept her sexuality but I also wouldn't turn my back on my family either."

That night, Taylor took me off campus to an Italian restaurant for dinner. It was really good and also the kind of first date that I never could have.

"So how do you like Stanford?" She asked me as she took a drink of her wine. She was 21 and could legally drink it.

"It's definitely more interesting than I thought." I replied. "I never expected to become the campus private eye."

"Well you're definitely more competent than the campus police." Taylor assured me. "Oh and if you ever need my help with solving a case, I would happy to. Because of you, I can continue to do what I love and not have to worry about my teacher stealing my work."

"So just out of curiosity, would you have still gone out with me if I hadn't been able to solve the case?" I inquired, hoping I wasn't being nosy asking that.

"If you had asked me out, I wouldn't have said no." She admitted. "But you definitely would have had to pay."

After I dropped Taylor off at her dorm, I walked back to my own and began to open the door. That sight that I saw was a little surprising and also shocking. Lilly and Drew were making out of Lilly's bed.

So it doesn't look like Martin was any help. And both Miley and Lilly are now in relationships it seems. For casting, Taylor is played by Claire Holt. Nick is played by Sebastian Stan. Lacey is played by Alice Greczen and Professor Green is played by Emily Deschanel. (Yes Bones is the villain) Please don't forget to review.


	5. You Give Luck a Bad Name

"Ahem." I cleared my throat. Drew and Lilly separated from each other and blushed.

"You know I should probably go to bed." The dark-haired girl said, before she grabbed her jacket and rushed out.

"Hi Miley." Lilly greeted. "How was the date?"

"It was fine." I said. "Why were you and Drew kissing?"

"Well she came over to help me with my algebra." Lilly stated. "But things started to get a little heated when she played some Nelly and took her jacket off. Did you know that her hair smells like strawberries? I love the smell of strawberries. Anyway so yeah I started kissing her."

So for much for Lilly grieving over Oliver. She just had to wait for me to start a relationship before letting me know that had moved on. I couldn't just break up with Taylor because that wouldn't be fair to her. I mean the girl got dumped twice less than a week ago. On top of that, I liked her. I do wonder how long this attraction between Lilly and Drew was going on. I may have noticed how close they were but I didn't think that they would end up dating or at least making out in our room.

"So do you and Drew have any plans for tomorrow?" I asked.

"I don't know." Lilly remarked. I guess they hadn't gotten that far.

"You two need to go on a date." I told her. I would support her relationship because even though I was in love with her, I wanted her to be happy first and foremost. "Maybe you two can head to the movie theatre on campus."

So matchmaking was another thing that I did from time to time. I don't know if they really needed it but I would help them out anyway because I was a good friend.

Later as I was brushing my teeth, my phone started to ring. I was getting a call from Taylor. I wondered why she was calling me at 11:00 but I answered it anyway, hoping that this wouldn't be a long conversation.

"Hi Taylor." I answered.

"Hey Miley, did you enjoy the date tonight?" She asked me.

"Yeah." I responded. "But you really didn't need to call me just to ask me that?"

"Well it's not just that." Taylor told me. "You see I've got this dinner with my parents on Wednesday night. They're flying all in the way from Delaware."

I did not like where this was going.

"You see they were coming in to meet my girlfriend. The problem is I didn't tell them that Lacey and I broke up and they already bought their tickets." She continued. I really did not like where this was going. "So basically I was hoping that you would help me out and show up in her place. Maybe you could pretend that we've been dating a little longer than we have."

Yeah I did not like that idea. Meeting the parents was usually something that I failed at. But I was Taylor's girlfriend and there was no way that I could say no. I just hoped that this would go well.

"I'd love to meet your parents." I told her. Yeah it was a lie but they were coming from Delaware to visit their daughter in college and her girlfriend who was also in college. Since I was Taylor's current girlfriend, it wouldn't be good of me to say no. I do wonder just how much Taylor had told them about Lacey. I know that calls from California to Delaware were probably kind of expensive. "So how much did you tell them about Lacey?"

"I actually never even told them her name since the relationship was kind of on the down low." Taylor told me. Perfect. "Do you think we come up with some things first."

"How about we do that tomorrow?" I suggested. "I need to go to bed."

"I'm sorry for keeping you up." Taylor apologized "I'll see you tomorrow. Bye."

"Bye." I replied as I hung up the phone. I headed back to my room to find Lilly sleeping soundly. I got into my bed and slowly drifted off into my path of slumber, hugging Barry Bear tightly.

In the morning, I woke up and went to get breakfast with Drew. As i was somewhat accustomed now, someone walked up to my table. Only this person was not your average. He was a local celebrity: Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck.

"I never expected that you would be the person I was supposed to come to if I have a problem." He stated.

"Who exactly could be causing you a problem?" Drew asked.

"That's what I want to know." The quarterback answered. "Basically if you know anything about the program, you probably know that I want to go pro next year. I know some people around here aren't exactly thrilled about it."

"Don't they know how much money you'll be making as the #1 overall pick?" I asked.

"Apparently they just don't care." Andrew said. "Lately I've been getting harassing phone calls, threatening letters, and all sorts of other bad things. It's making it kind of hard to focus on my classes and football. I need you to find out who's doing it and preferably get them to stop."

"I am going to need some sort of incentive to do this. I do have other things that I need to do." I informed him.

"Well I can't give money per NCAA rules but I can get you free tickets to a few games." He offered. Tickets were usually around $10 for students and $20 for everyone else. Hmm Daddy might like those for his birthday.

"I guess we have a deal." I replied. "So do you have any leads?"

"Well I could give you a list of a few of the guys from the team that are upset about me going pro." He responded. I supposed that would be good enough for now. I handed him a pen and paper.

He wrote down a few names that he thought I should check out.

"Okay so I have to go to class now but I'll get on this as soon as I'm done in there." I stated as Drew and I threw our trays away.

"Wow Andrew Luck just asked you for help." Drew beamed.

"Yeah I noticed that." I told her. She seemed a little starstruck. "I guess world really is starting to spread around."

"But you like helping people, don't you?" She questioned. I nodded. I did have for helping people as long as I didn't hate them. That was a pretty short list. It included Jake, Am…well I guess just Ashley, Sean Nana, and the puppeteer behind that buffalo puppet, oh and my identical cousin LuAnn.

"So I don't suppose that you've talked to Lilly yet, have you?" I asked as she shook her head. "Well I basically said to her that you two should go to the movie theater on campus tonight for a date."

"You're okay with us dating?" Drew asked.

"Of course I am. I can't think of any reason why I shouldn't be unless you can give me one." I told her as we walked into the classroom.

Once the class started, Professor King began to speak.

"So before today's lecture, I think I should talk about your final project." The teacher said. "Basically you must write a paper for anything that you can relate to Sociology. You're welcome to choose anything. Last semester I had a group write a paper on rap music's effect on society. I wasn't have chosen it but it was actually a pretty good paper and the students got an A. Now for this project you must work with a partner but you can choose anyone you want because I don't have time to assign them. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them after class."

So I already knew who my partner was going to be as I listened to his lecture and started to take notes. I smiled at Drew and she smiled back at me to give me further affirmation. We had until the end of the semester so I guess we really didn't need to work on it now. I actually don't know when I'm going to be able to work on such a project if these cases keep coming and there's also the fact that I still need to solve the big case of who caused the explosion.

As soon as class was over, I decided to check Facebook for any info that could tell me what these guys on the list that Andrew gave me were like. The first person on the list was DeRay Smith. Now I didn't need to look at his profile to know that he was black. Sure enough I was correct. Once again, I wanted to be a bit more conspicuous than just leaving a wall post. I looked up and noticed that he was right across the courtyard from me. Hmm that was extremely convenient. I walked over to him.

"So what position do you play?" I asked.

"Receiver, that's why my number is 84." DeRay answered before he looked at my face. "Well hello Miss Miley Stewart, are you coming to game this Saturday?"

"Maybe" I replied. "So I heard that you're against Andrew Luck going pro."

"I just think that he has another year left, I mean Stanford could be a real force in the BCS next year." He answered. "Having Andy around would be great."

"Yeah but how can you guarantee that you're on of the top 2 teams in an extremely flawed system?" I asked. "And I don't see why that's a reason to put this season in jeopardy."

"Look I'm not the one harassing him." DeRay responded. "I'm his roommate. I have to deal with that stuff too. But I agree just because I want to play one more year doesn't mean that I don't want to win this year."

So that was a dead end. I decided to check the next person on the list. It turned out that he was going to be out today. Well that pretty much left me with nowhere to check for the rest of the day.

Correction there was something else that I needed to do. I needed to meet with Taylor to discuss what we were going to tell her parents. I probably should also try to get to know her a little better since I really only knew the minimum right now. I went to her dorm room.

"So do you have anything specific that you want to say?" I asked her.

"Well for starters we've been dating 3 months instead of 3 days." Taylor told me. "That's how long I was with Lacey. Also you like to call me Tay Jay because my middle name is Jessica."

"Okay." I replied. "Actually I really do like that nickname."

"Also I like to call you Miley Bear." She told me. "It is okay if I called you that, isn't it? I was thinking because you're good at snuggling."

"Okay just to be clear, I 'm gonna say that we haven't had sex yet." I stated.

"Of course and I would say that we're waiting till your birthday, which is?" She replied.

"November 22nd." I responded. "When's yours?"

"July 28th." She replied. "One more thing: we need to decide how we met. I was thinking we met over the summer at a Giants game."

"Can it be another team?" I asked. "I'm kind of a Dodgers fan."

"Okay then we met an A's game." She declared. "We really got to talking and we went out on a date the next day."

"Sounds good." I agreed.

"Oh one more thing. You don't have to tell me that you love me." She said. "In fact I prefer that you don't. That is one thing I don't want to lie about."

The next day, I walked into my English to meet my new professor. I did see a blonde girl that I had never seen before. She obviously wasn't a student but maybe she was an aide.

"Is everything going alright?" I asked.

"I would kind of like to know that." She replied. "I'm Professor Groves, the new teacher."

I was a little shocked. This I was not expecting. She was shorter than I was. "I thought you were an aide." I said, blushing.

"I've been getting that a lot." The professor answered truthfully. You know that I'm actually 31 despite the fact that I looked I should be taking this class."

"There's nothing wrong with looking young." I told her. "I guess what really matters is how good of a teacher you are."

"Well it's hard not to better than a woman who sells her students stories online." She joked. I already had a feeling that I was going to like her. "So you're the one who caught her. Then I guess I should thank because I wouldn't have a job here otherwise. It's kind of an honor to have you in my class."

"Well I was just helping someone out" I told her before I took my seat. I couldn't help but wonder what her style of teaching would be.

"Okay can I have everyone's attention?" She asked. "I know this may surprise you but I'm Professor Groves, your new teacher. I know this is my first day but I need to move the curriculum along. So what I'm going to assign is a position paper. Now I think all of you probably can relate to the accident at the beginning of the semester. I want each of you to tell me if you think the university has done enough in response. Please give me examples of why or why not in 7 paragraphs."

I had to think about this one. I know that the police weren't doing enough. I also didn't like how it was being called an accident. However I wasn't going to contradict that in a paper lest she doesn't believe me and I could get sent to a psychiatrist. However I still haven't heard any sort of memorial plans. I could probably use that and get a good essay out of it. Yeah that was what I would do. I started to typed and did so until class was over.

After class and lunch, I went to gym. It happened to be a favorite destination of Theo Kearney, who was also on the list that Andrew gave me. It would also give me an opportunity to get some swimming in. The first step was to go to the workout room. I found Theo on the bench, lifting.

"Theo Kearney?" I asked.

"What can I do for you?" He asked.

"I need to talk to you about Andrew Luck." I said to him. He set the bar down and got up off the bench.

"What about him?" He asked.

"What do you have against him going pro?" I asked.

"The way I see it, he deserves to be a #1 overall pick." Theo told me. "But the Colts will probably have the #1 pick next year and they just signed Peyton Manning to a 90 million dollar deal. Now they're not gonna trade Manning, so he'll probably lose some money or be forced to sit on the bench."

"I think it worked out well for Aaron Rodgers." I countered.

"Yeah but that's what one guy." Theo responded. "Plus if he stays till next year, he can get a degree."

"So you don't have any information about who could possibly be harassing him?" I asked.

"Well it's not me." He replied. "I finally got a starting job after Darius died. If I got caught do something like that, I would lose my spot at a minimum."

"How did Darius die?" I asked curiously.

"He was one of the students in the room during the explosion." Theo explained. I looked at him funny. "But hey just because I benefitted from it doesn't mean I had anything to do with it. That Oliver guy actually decided to visit the football team at practice. He was actually pretty cool. We were all gonna go to show but Darius decided to go there early."

Well that wasn't really that helpful either way. As it turned out, the third guy was in the hospital after a recent car accident. That gave him a pretty good alibi. There was only one thing that I could think when I saw Andrew next.

"Do you think that you can give me some of the letters that have been sent to you?" I asked. "Maybe I'll be able to figure out some clues by looking at them."

He gave them to me and I was able to look at them a little before I had to get ready for my big date. I'll admit I was nervous about meeting Taylor's parents, especially since we were going to be lying to them.

I decided to wear a red dress to the dinner. It went pretty well with the black dress that Taylor had sent a picture of herself wearing.

As I arrived at the restaurant, I noticed something interesting. The Stanford coaching staff was having a meeting over dinner apparently. I found the table that Taylor and her parents were at and headed there.

"Mom, Daddy, this is my girl Miley." Taylor introduced as she pulled my chair out for me to sit in.

"It's a pleasure to meet you…Mr. and Mrs. Roy." I replied nervously.

"Is everything alright dear?" Her mom asked.

"I'm just a little nervous about meeting you." I replied. "I am Tay Jay is such a wonderful girl and I hope that I can live up to your expectations of what a good girlfriend for her should be like."

"Right so how did the two of you meet exactly?" Her father asked.

"It was at a baseball game." Taylor responded. "Oakland vs.…who were they playing again, Miley Bear?"

"Arizona." I answered. I made sure to check the schedule so I could use that as a reference.

"So Miley, is this your first semester here?" Mrs. Roy asked.

"Yes it is." I responded.

"What's your major?" She asked.

"Well I was thinking about majoring in Criminal Justice." I told them. What seemed a little interesting was that they did not seem to recognize me at all. I really didn't mind. It was nice to be able to be myself even though I was lying. Overall I think the date went pretty well. I seemed to leave a pretty good impression on Taylor's parents.

As I was walking to the bathroom, I noticed something interested on the floor by the coach's table. I reached down to pick it up. I then looked at in realization. It was a letter saying "YOUR LUCK HAS RUN OUT" and it was the same handwriting as the others.

"Is there a problem Miss?" One of the coaches asked me as I noticed a stack of papers next to an empty seat. This could be a chance to figure out.

"I was just wondering who was sitting here." I said.

"That would be Pete Bedder, the offensive coordinator." I was told. I put the paper on the bottom of the stack and said nothing else.

The next day, I went to the football field and found Coach Bedder's office. As it turned out, Coach Shaw was in the room with him.

"Excuse me gentlemen." I stated. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in knowing who has been harassing Andrew Luck about staying in school instead of going pro."

"I would be very interested in that." Coach Shaw replied.

"Well you see it wasn't easy to figure out. None of the other players that I asked had a motive or an opportunity to do it. But then I looked at the letters and I happened to notice that there was a watermark that said Stanford Football on it. These are only available to the coaching staff, correct?"

I noticed Coach Bedder looking like he needed to get up suddenly.

"Of course I still didn't know who did it." I replied, noticing Andrew walking up behind me. "That was until Coach Bedder dropped a threatening letter last night at the dinner table."

"That's ridiculous." Coach Bedder shouted.

"Is it really?" I asked. "When I did a background check I found two cases of extortion. But you also wanted Andrew to stay here because happened to go to bet 50 grand last year that Stanford would win a national championship sometime in the next 3 years. You figured that best way to do that was keep the greatest Stanford quarterback since Elway around for another year."

"I've heard enough." Coach Shaw said. "Pete, you're fired. Andre you think you know the playbook well enough to call the plays this week?"

"Yes sir." Andrew replied.

When I walked back to the dorm, I noticed that Mikayla was in the common room.

"Miley." She called to me.

"Mikayla?" I asked, wondering what she wanted to talk about.

"I heard you say a few weeks that Professor Lunsford was in charge of the show and she was supposed to be in the bathroom at the time of the explosion."

"Yeah." I responded, wondering where this was going.

"Well I saw a picture of her and I remember that she was at Applebee's around the time of the concert. " Mikayla responded. "But she did go outside for a moment."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means that she lied to you." Mikayla pointed out. "I think she would be worth looking into as a suspect."

So it seems like we have another suspect. I also wanted to have Miley meet Andrew Luck since she is at Stanford. As for this chapter, Professor Groves is played by Kristen Bell. I thought it was appropriate to include her since this story is based off Veronica Mars. DeRay is played by DeShawn Washington III who played Skinny in the first Step Up movie. Theo is played by Max Adler. Taylor's parents are played by Peter Billingsley and Elle Macpherson and lastly Coach Bedder is played by Kevin Bacon. Please don't forget to review.


	6. Without Food

The next day I decided that I should pay Professor Lunsford another visit, if for no other reason to find out why she lied to me. Did I consider her a suspect? I don't know but I suppose that it was a possibility considering that she wasn't even in the building at the time of the explosion. I don't understand why she would lie about that. I walked over to her office and noticed that she was in fact inside. I knocked on the open door to get her attention. She seemed to playing Angry Birds for some unknown reason.

"Yes Miley?" She asked me.

"You told me that on the night of the explosion you were in the bathroom in the music center, right?" I asked.

"Yes, why?" The professor responded.

"I have a witness that says that she saw you at Applebee's at the time of the explosion." I stated. "What I want to know is why you would lie about your alibi. If word got out about this, the police would probably want to talk to you."

"You think I caused the explosion?" She asked.

"I don't know what to think about you." I replied. "All I know is that you lied about where you were and you weren't doing your job watching the concert like you were supposed to. I would like to know some reasons why. But if you don't want to tell me, I will relay the information to the police."

"Wait I wasn't in the music hall because I don't like the loud music. I don't even like rock music. I figured that Andre could handle everything and decided to step out and get some dinner. I did cause that explosion or know that there was going to be an explosion of any kind."

"Now that wasn't that hard, was it?" I asked as I walked away. Sure it didn't give me any real information but I also managed to leave a spy pen that I bought. It would record any conversations that she had with anyone. So if she had anything to hide, I would be able to find out.

When I got to the common room, I noticed that Taylor was there waiting for me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Well it's my off day so I decided that I would spend it with you." She explained. I smiled and kissed her. I wasn't a big fan of public displays of affection so I took her back to my room. I was glad that Lilly was in class right now. I had a bed that needed to be made out on.

I opened the door and removed Taylor's jacket that she was wearing over her dress. She laid herself on my bed and I was able to joined her when the there was a knock on the locked door. God, who was it that had such bad timing. I begrudgingly opened it to see that Melanie was standing on the other side.

"Is there a problem?" I asked.

"Yes there is." Melanie replied.

"Did someone find that you've been giving me information?" I asked.

"No." Melanie answered. "I need your help."

"With what?" Taylor asked.

"I went to use my meal card today, only to find out that it was empty." Melanie explained.

"Was it not empty before?" I asked.

"No I had 700 dollars on it yesterday." Melanie explicated.

"Did you lose it by any chance?" I asked.

"No I've had it with me the whole time." Melanie answered as a tear ran down her face. "I need that money. I can't work because of my RA duties."

"How about I buy you lunch?" I suggested as Melanie nodded. Taylor nodded at me. The two of us took the RA to the cafeteria so she could have a proper meal.

"Thank you." Melanie thanked me as Taylor and I sat close to her.

"Now is there any information that you can give me?" I asked. "Anyone who you think holds enough of a grudge against you to do this?"

"Not that I can think of." Melanie answered.

"Do you have any teachers that you don't trust?" Taylor asked. The two of us stared at her. "What? It's worth asking."

"No I'm pretty sure that none of my professors have anything against me." Melanie responded. "The only person that I can think of who might want to do this to me is my ex-boyfriend, Drake."

"Drake who?" I asked.

"Drake Hawthorne." Melanie replied. "He's on the basketball team so he shouldn't be too hard to find."

Melanie got up leaving Taylor and I alone.

"Okay so I know that this isn't exactly the best time but I want to tell my parents the truth." Taylor remarked. "I want them to know that we made most of it up because I was covering my breakup with Lacey."

"When are they leaving?" I asked.

"Tomorrow morning." Taylor answered. "I was thinking that we could have breakfast and tell them then."

"Okay I can do that." I agreed. "Just let me see if I can find Drake today."

I kissed Taylor and headed down to the gym, deciding that it would be a good place to start. The basketball season hadn't started yet but I imagine that the team still practiced there. If he wasn't there, maybe someone would know where to find him.

"Miley, I wasn't expecting to see you here." Drew said to me. I guess since this was my first time coming here, it was a little bit surprising. I have to admit, Drew looked really sexy in a tank top and short shorts.

"I was actually looking for someone." I replied. "You wouldn't happen to know if Drake Hawthorne is here, would you?"

"Yeah he's in the gym shooting hoops." Drew told me. "Why do you need to talk to him?"

"He's Melanie's ex." I replied. "I'm working on a case for her and he's the first person that I need to question."

I walked into the gym and saw there was only one guy there. I assumed that it was him.

"Are you Drake?" I asked.

"Of course I am." He replied. "What can I do for you?"

"You dated Melanie Watkinson, didn't you?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?" He asked.

"She's a friend of mine and recently had her meal plan account drained." I explained.

"That sucks." He commented.

"She said that you're someone who might hold a grudge against her." I added.

"Okay that now is just messed up that she would accuse me of something like that." He shouted. "Not only am I not smart enough to do that but stealing money from someone is terrible. Especially since I know that she's here solely on financial aid."

"Look she's not accusing you." I pointed out. You were just the only suspect that she could give me."

"I hope you find out who did it because I would love to beat the crap out of him…if it's a guy that is." Drake replied. "Even though we're not going out anymore and I don't really like her that much whoever would do that to a person like her is just a monster."

Okay so yeah, I have a pretty strong feeling that he didn't do it.

After I got back from my Geometry class, I headed to the ATM to get some money out. I went back to the dorm and gave it to Melanie, who was working the desk.

"It's not Drake." I told her. "Here's some money for food. It should last you the weekend. I promise that I'll do my best to find out who did it."

"Thanks." Melanie told me. "Now I can see why so many people come for your help. You're a great person."

I went up to my room to see Lilly was inside. She looked like she had torn open the closet.

"Lilly what is going on here?" I asked as calmly as possible.

"I can't decide what to wear for my date with Drew tonight." Lilly remarked.

"Aren't you two just going to see a movie?" I asked.

"Yeah but I still want to look nice." Lilly countered. I sighed. I know a girl should always look her best on a date but Lilly could definitely take it to an extreme sometimes. I suppose since this was her first date with Drew, she was probably feeling a little nervous and that anxiety was being shown in a manner of obsessing about her clothes.

"Just wear the blue Dolce dress." I told her.

"That's a great idea." Lilly agreed as she started to take her clothes off. "So how are things going between you and Taylor?"

"You know how we lied to her parents about being together longer?" I asked as Lilly nodded. "Well now she wants to tell the truth."

"That's good, isn't it?" Lilly asked as she pulled the dress over her head. "Telling the truth always seemed to turn out better for you."

"Yeah I guess it is." I agreed.

"So I'm really nervous." Lilly commented. "Making out with her fun but now that we're going on a date, it all feels real."

"Don't you want it to feel real?" I asked.

"Yeah I guess I do." I responded before there was a knock on the door. I opened the door to let Drew in.

"You look nice." She told Lilly. She then looked over to me. "You look nice too."

"Thank you." I said, laughing slightly. "So I hope the two of you have a good time."

"You can come with us." Lilly said. "I mean it's just a movie. You don't even have to sit by us."

"Or you could ask Taylor is she wants to come." Drew suggested.

"Thanks but I have some shows that I want to watch." I replied. I had no problem staying in on a Friday night, especially since I had a good feeling that I would get a visitor.

Not long after Lilly and Drew walked off was there a knock on the door. I opened it and began to kiss the other person. I was so happy that I would be getting some alone time with her.

"So I know in our story we said we weren't having sex but that was kind of a lie." Taylor stammered. "I mean we can or can't if you want. It's all up to you."

"How can I say no when you're so adorable?" I asked.

The two of us ended up doing something that's too graphic to be described here. It was in no way rough, like when I had sex Jake. Taylor really knew how to make a girl feel good. I can see why Lacey wanted her even though she was with her brother.

"So do you think we should be doing this with my parents?" Taylor asked as she stroked my hair. "They won't be happy that I lied to them."

"Yeah but they'll probably be proud of you for telling the truth." I responded. "Plus we don't need to lie to make our relationship sound any better than it is. I think it's been going pretty great so far."

In the morning, the two of us caught breakfast with her parents before they had to go to the airport. I kind of wish we didn't have to get up so early to do so.

Taylor spilled the beans. She told them that she had been dating Lacey when they came and didn't want to tell that relationship was over. Needless to say, they seem to be upset about the lie but were also proud that she had told the truth. They also told me that they liked me no matter how long Taylor and I had actually been dating. This had to be one of the first times that meeting someone's parents went well for me. Maybe it was because Taylor was also a girl. Speaking of parents, I should probably find a way to tell Daddy about this.

Being a Saturday and due to the fact that I didn't really have any leads, I couldn't really work on the case. At least that was what I thought.

"Hey I heard you talking to Drake Hawthorne yesterday about someone having their meal plan drained." A girl with black hair said to me on our way back from breakfast.

"Yeah." I replied.

"Well I wanted to tell you that the same thing happened to me." She said. "I'm Leah. I think there are a few people that this has happened to. It would really mean a lot if you could find out the person that did this."

So now I knew that this wasn't just someone trying to get back at Melanie. This seemed to be something much bigger.

"I have some news." I told Melanie as I walked back into the dorm.

"What's that?" Melanie asked. I also began to wonder how Melanie managed to date someone as tall as Drake.

"It turns out that you're no that only who had their account drained." I explained, not sure if that was something that would make her feel comfortable.

"Do you have a list of the people that were affected?" She asked.

"No." I responded as I shook my head.

"Well I guess I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one." She admitted.

Later that day, I decided to use my tickets to go the football game with Lilly and Drew. The person that I was sitting next to was kind of interesting.

"Hey Miley." Professor King greeted. Lilly and Drew were getting snacks.

"Hi, Professor." I told him.

"You look like you've got something on your mind." He commented.

"I'm just trying to figure out how someone would be able to steal from multiple people's meal plan accounts." I stated.

"Well they would probably have to use a computer." The professor told me. "I know someone who might be able to help you."

He wrote something down on a slip of paper.

"Mark Smith?" I asked.

"This guy is a computer genius." He praised. "If anyone can help you, he might be able to."

After the game which ended in a Stanford victory, I headed to Melanie for her help.

"Can you find me Mark Smith?" I asked.

"I don't need the computer for this one." Melanie stated. "He's actually in this dorm. Room 431."

I headed upstairs and found Mark's room. I knocked on the door and it opened. Mark Smith did not look like I expected. I expected some overweight guy with glasses but he was a black guy without glasses that was kind of in good shape.

"You're Mark Smith?" I asked.

"Yeah." He responded. "You need some computer work?"

"Actually I was wondering how someone could steal money from another student's meal plan account." I answered. "There's been quite a few going on lately which includes a friend of mine's."

"Hmm well there's two ways that someone could do that." Mark explained. "Either they stole the card and transferred all of the money to a separate account, or they used a random number generator to select the correct number of digits. That way would probably be more efficient. It would make it so the victims have seemingly nothing in common."

"Do you think that there's any way that you can find out who did it?" I asked.

"Well if I could get a few different names, I might be able to track the transactions and trace them all back to the server that it was taken from. Try and find as many people as you can and then come back to me."

So I went around the campus looking for people before I decided to try a new tactic. I posted a message on the Stanford page and got 8 different hits. One of them included Leah. As Mark had predicted, the students seemed to have nothing in common with Melanie or each other. It seemed like the numbers had been chosen at random. I wrote down the list of names and took them back to Mark's room.

"So it will take me a little while to trace all of these." Mark explained. "Give me your number and I'll call you when I'm done."

So while I waited for him to do his work, I decided to check my email. As it turned out there was a message from Professor Lunsford.

_Dear Miley_

_ There was another reason why I didn't want to go to the show. I checked the wiring and it didn't seem quite right. But I didn't want to cancel the show so I just kept quiet. I know I should have cancelled the show and I really wish that I had._

_ Sincerely  
>Grace Lunsford<em>

Okay now I wonder why she didn't report it. And did she mean that the wires looked like they had been tampered with? This was definitely very fishy. I think I should probably report this to the dean because the fact that she allowed the show to happen when she thought it was unsafe cannot be overlooked. I decided to forward the email that she had sent me to the dean's email address. I don't know what the response to it would be but I had to do what was right.

That night Mark called me up to his room. I went up there and noticed that he had a smile on his face.

"I think that I've found the source." He responded. "I've managed to locate the source of the transactions. As it turns out, Joe Goldstein has over 5000 dollars in his account.

So I called the campus police and had them gain clearance to Joe Goldstein's dorm room. As it turned out he was stealing from the money. He wasn't in the room but Mark managed to use his computer to transfer the money back to their original owners and also put a tracker on Joe's account so that when he used the cashier would know to notify security.

"What the hell is going on here?" A male voice replied. I assumed it was Joe.

"Joe Goldstein you're under for cyber fraud." The officer told him. They handcuffed him and as they were walking down, I noticed Drake come up to the officers. He was granted permission to punch Joe which I have to admit was kind of funny to see.

When I got back to the dorm, Melanie gave me a hug, happy that her funds had been recovered.

"Thank you." She told me.

"You're welcome." I responded.

On Monday, I heard that the dean did not appreciate finding out about Professor Lunsford. Also knowing this, it was announced that the police were reopening the case. This was about to get a lot more complicated.

So I figured that it was about time that Melanie got to do something more than just assist Miley. I also figured that Taylor should tell her parents the truth. Characters appearing in this chapter include Drake being played by Blake Griffin, Leah is played by Grace Phipps, Mark is played by Denzel Whitaker and finally Joe is played by Sean Flynn (Chase from Zoey 101.) So now that the case has been reopemed what kind of problems will this cause for Miley? Don't forget to review.


	7. It's An Okay Day for a White Wedding

So it turned out that the police were going to be looking into investigating Martin as the killer. Sure let's see if the dead guy did it. Anyway, I didn't have a lot of time to work on the case. I was planning to go home this weekend. I wasn't sure if Lilly was going to be able to come with me. I decided to ask her as she walked into the room.

"Are you sure that you don't want to come with?" I asked my blonde roommate. She was currently ironing her clothes for some reason. I didn't ask why.

"Yeah I have to study for my Algebra exam on Monday." She replied. "You should see if Taylor wants to go with you."

"I guess that would be worth a try." I admitted. I needed to find her quick because I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I rushed to Taylor's dorm and knocked on her door.

"Why didn't you just call?" Taylor asked as she appeared behind me.

"I have something that I need to ask you." I said, turning to face her. She put on a listening face. "I'm going home to Malibu this weekend and I was wondering if you wanted to come with."

"Would your dad be there?" She asked.

"Since I'm going home, yeah he will." I answered. "Is that a problem?"

"No I just wanted to make sure that I would get to meet him." Taylor told me. "I would love to go. When are we leaving?"

"Do you think you can be ready in an hour?" I asked.

"Well I need to shower and pack some stuff but yeah I think that sounds doable." She declared as she grabbed a towel. "So I will meet you in your dorm's lobby in an hour."

"I could bring my car around the front." I offered.

"That will work too." Taylor added as she hugged me.

I headed back to my dorm and saw Melanie was working the front desk.

"Hey." I greeted her.

"Hi." Melanie reciprocated. "I know I've already said this a few times but thanks again for the help."

"You're welcome once again." I replied. "I needed to tell you that I'm gonna be going home this weekend."

"Okay but I don't quite understand why you need to tell me that." The RA replied in confusion. I guess she didn't get it.

"I'm telling you because people might ask for me while I'm away and I would need you to tell them that I'm not here." I explained.

"Oh yeah." Melanie realized. "I can do that."

I nodded and headed to the shower. I had to be quick since I had less time than Taylor. The good news was that I was already packed. One thing that Daddy might be a little surprised to see is that I had lightened my hair recently. It wasn't Hannah blonde but it was more of a golden brown. I had learned proper dying techniques after that wig fiasco on that boat to Hawaii. I couldn't help but wonder what happened to that cute young couple I had met. I dressed myself in a simple white top and jeans. It was nothing fancy but it didn't need to be. I grabbed some sunglasses because I knew it would be warmer than it is here. I actually was really excited about this trip home. I wanted to see what the city was like since I left. I was also interested in seeing Jackson and wondered if he by chance worked up the courage to propose to Siena yet.

After I was done with my makeup, I headed out to my car and subsequently parked in front of Taylor's dorm. I decided to text her to see if she was ready yet. While I waited, I decided to listen to the radio. I heard this song about this girl who promised to kill her boyfriend if he cheated on her. That was a little extreme I must say. I would settle for injuring him, if I was still dating boys that is. Still it was a good female empowerment anthem. I wish I knew who the singer was.

Taylor came out dragging a suitcase behind her. She looked kind of cute like that. I popped the trunk and she deposited it next to mine. She sat down next to me. It was dark out because it was Thursday night. My Geometry class was cancelled tomorrow so this was my best chance to do this.

"So how far is Malibu from here?" Taylor asked.

"It's about a six hour drive." I replied. Hmm maybe I should have had Daddy send the plane. That would have been easier. "You still have a chance to change your mind if you don't want to go."

"No I want to go with you." She replied. "It's okay if I sleep in the car, isn't it?"

"Of course." I replied. "We're in for a long ride."

The ride was very long indeed. It would probably already midnight when we arrived. I wanted to talk about something with her but I wasn't quite sure where to start.

"So have you ever ridden a horse?" I asked.

"I'm from Delaware." She responded. Yes I know this but I'm not sure what that had to do with anything. "There really isn't much to do there other than ride horses."

"Hmm so you said that you were going to be writing a story about me. How it's going?" I asked.

"It's going pretty well actually. I'm not done but I can tell that it's going to be great when I am." She answered.

"How long is it going to be?" I asked.

"Probably somewhere between thirty and fifty pages." Taylor responded.

"Wow I don't think I could ever write something that long." I admitted. "The longest thing that I've ever written is a five minute song."

"And it was a really good song." Taylor replied. I so wish I could kiss her right now. "I think I'm gonna go to sleep."

Taylor put her earbuds in her ears and nodded off. I continued to drive with the radio on low. It was a good thing that I had filled up because I knew gas stations could get pretty scary late at night.

Shortly after midnight, I pulled into the driveway. Taylor was still soundly asleep. I figured I should wake her up but then I saw Daddy walking toward the car. I could make him carry our bags. Yes that would definitely work. I smiled and rolled down the window.

"Hey Daddy." I greeted him.

"I thought you said Lilly wasn't coming." He remarked seeing the sleeping blonde.

"This is not Lilly." I said as I shook Taylor awake. This is my girlfriend Taylor."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Stewart." Taylor replied, a little sleepily. "Did you shave your mustache off?"

"Actually it was a fake." Daddy replied. "So do you girls need me to get your bags?"

"That would be great, Daddy." I replied as I got out of the car and went around to the passenger side to let Taylor out. She looked pretty cute right now.

"Is Jackson here?" I asked as Taylor and I started to walk into the house.

"He and Siena should be back soon." Daddy explained.

"What, why is she going to be here so late?" I asked.

"Oh I forgot to tell you. She kind of moved in." Daddy said like it was no big deal.

"They didn't get married yet, did they?" I asked.

"No." He replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. I would have been so pissed at him if he hadn't told me or waited for me to be home "The wedding is not until Saturday."

"So Jackson's getting married and you didn't tell me?" I asked.

"I'm telling you now, Bud." He responded. "You didn't tell me you had a girlfriend."

"Touché." I replied.

"Is everything alright?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah just a little family drama." I replied. "Also we need to go shopping to get some dresses for my brother's wedding on Saturday."

"I can understand why that would be a little upsetting not knowing about." She told me. "So I don't think I'm ready to go to bed yet."

"How about we see what's on TV right now while we wait." I suggested.

"Can we have tacos?" She asked.

"I don't know if we have any tacos." I replied. "How about popcorn?"

"That will work too." She told me as I turned on the TV in the living room and put some popcorn in the popcorn maker. Yes we had one. It was probably unnecessary but Daddy used a lot of the income that I had made to buy and furnish the house. I believe the total cost was around 2 million which really wasn't that bad. I had no idea what was on TV at midnight since I usually wasn't watching it then.

"So where's your room?" Taylor questioned.

"It's out in the barn." I explained. "It may not look like much on the outside but it looks amazing on the inside."

"I believe you." She declared. "I mean you were probably the most successful popstar since Michael Jackson or at least Brittney Spears. I imagine you like to live in style."

"I do like to live in style." I agreed. I then heard Jackson's car pulling up. I imagine Siena was with him. "Do you want to meet my brother? It's okay if you don't. I would completely understand if you didn't."

Before she could answer, Jackson, and Siena walked in the door.

"Hello bro." I told him with a little bit of spite. "I heard you were getting married."

"Look I told Dad to invite you and he did." Jackson replied.

"He didn't mention that it was for your wedding." I remarked. Everyone then stared at Daddy, even Taylor.

"I'm thinkin' I'm gonna head up to bed." Daddy said before he ran upstairs in haste.

"So who is this girl?" Siena asked.

"I'm Taylor Roy." The blonde girl replied. "Hey, I've seen you somewhere before. Aren't you a swimsuit model or something?"

"Yeah I'm Siena…well in about 36 hours my last name will be Stewart. I'm going to break the trend." She explained.

"Listen I would love to stay up and chat but I just drove for six hours and am kind of tired." I replied as I grabbed Taylor's hand and took her to my room.

"Yes, this is amazing." Taylor commented.

"So there are two beds…" I stated. "How do you want to do this?"

"Well I still am a little tired but I would like to share a bed with you." Taylor told me. "What time should we wake up to go shopping tomorrow?"

"Well not too early." I answered. "How's 9:00 sound?"

"That could work…if we go out for breakfast." Taylor agreed as she started to get dressed for bed. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just that we've never slept in the same room before." I commented. "So how do you feel about going to the wedding?"

"I have to say, I'm a little nervous." She admitted. "When you told me I would be meeting your family, I didn't think it would be your whole family."

"Also we may need to cool it on the PDA." I remarked.

"Why?" She asked.

"It's not that I'm ashamed to be seen with you or the fact that I don't want people to know that I'm with you but this isn't like school. They are paparazzi here. You might not want your name in the press." I explained. "Plus I don't want to be forced to come out because someone takes a picture of us kissing."

"Got it." She agreed. "I just hope you feel comfortable enough to publicly come out."

"I'll tell you what, next time I do an interview, I will tell everyone that you're my girlfriend." I told her.

"I would appreciate that." She replied as we got into bed. "Goodnight Miley Bear."

"Goodnight Tay Jay." I reciprocated before I fell into sleep.

That morning we went to get breakfast at Rico's because even though Rico is a jerk, he still makes good French Toast Sticks. I then noticed that there was police line over the shack.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Someone robbed the shack last night." Rico said as he appeared.

"So I guess we won't be eating here." Taylor remarked.

"Do you have any idea who might have done it?" I asked the little man.

"The only person I could think is my brother Mateo." Rico explained. "He's a little upset about my settlement not being paid. The police said that they won't be able to look at it until Monday."

"I'll find out who did it." I promised. "After I get some breakfast."

"So how are you going to manage to solve a crime with the wedding?" Taylor asked me at breakfast.

"Luck I suppose." I answered. "I don't quite know but I am going to try."

"Well if anyone can figure this out before the weekend is over, it'll be you." She replied. "You managed to figure out my problem in a day."

"Yeah but that was easier because everyone was in one place." I pointed out. "It may not work that way. I've never solved a case in the real world."

"Well let's consider this your first test." She encouraged. "Let's go talk to this Mateo guy. For all we know he could have done it."

"It's usually never the first person." I remarked. I couldn't help but wonder why that was

The two of us went to Rico's house and were quick to realize that Rico had a pretty large family. That was a Mexican stereotype even though they defied the others because they were rich.

"I'm looking Mateo." I asked one of them.

"That's me." He replied.

"I'm here to talk to you on Rico's behalf." I stated. "I don't know if you heard that the shack was robbed last night. Rico thinks you might have been involved."

"Why does he think that?" Mateo asked.

"Well he said that you were upset because something about a settlement." I explained. "What kind of settlement was he talking about anyway?"

"It was from the lawsuit that we just ended." Mateo told me.

"Why were you suing him?" Taylor asked.

"There was a commercial that he promised that he would let me be in and as you can tell, I wasn't in it." Mateo explained. "But I didn't steal the money. I'm not going to risk going to jail just to get a couple thousand bucks."

"Are there are any other members of your family that don't like Rico?" I asked.

"Our parents are probably the only ones that do like him." Mateo pointed out. "You went to school went with him so you know that he wasn't well liked. Rico has a lot of enemies."

"Yes I know." I remarked. "Thank you for your time."

As we were on the way out, my phone rang. It was Rico. How he got my number, I don't know."

"Yes, Rico?" I answered.

"I just want to tell you that they found an eyelash curler at the scene of the crime." He replied. "That means that the thief was probably a girl. They said it was made of an unusual wooden alloy. It's supposed to be all-natural."

"I know who did it." I told him before I hung up. I then began to drive to the house of the criminal.

I knocked on the door. It was answered by Joannie, Oliver's ex-girlfriend.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"I need to see Sarah." I replied. Sarah was my school's environment and Joannie's stepsister.

"Miley, what are you doing here?" Sarah asked.

"I think the better question would be why you robbed Rico's last night." I countered.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sarah stammered.

"Well I found that Rico said that was an all-natural eyelash curler left there. I remember you having one last year." I replied. "I'm not gonna turn you into the police so just tell me why you did it."

"Rico's gone too far with his meat peddling. I was thinking if he didn't have enough money, he would have to close." Sarah explained.

"Wow I can't believe that you fell for that." I replied as I took out my phone. "Oh and I wouldn't expect any all-natural fabrics in jail."

The police came and arrested Sarah and I took Taylor so we could get out dresses. I went with an orange gown and Taylor went with a black one.

Later in the day, everyone started to arrive for the wedding: Mamaw, Aunt Dolly, Uncle Earl, Aunt Pearl, Grandma Ruby and others.

I saw Rico at the wedding rehearsal. He was Jackson's best man.

"Thanks for solving the case." He told me. "How can I repay you?"

"Here's the bill for our dresses." I replied, handing him a receipt. He took out his checkbook and gave me one.

The next day was the wedding, Claire and I sat in the audience with the rest of the family. Jackson's groomsmen consisted of Rico, Daddy, his old Cooper, is old friend Thor, and his third friend Max. I don't know why Jackson only seemed to have one friend at a time. I think Siena's bridesmaids were all fellow swimsuit models. They were definitely a great looking bunch.

"Do you Siena take Jackson to be your lawfully wedded husband in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, till death do you part?" The priest asked her.

"I do." Siena replied.

"Do you Jackson also take Siena to all of that?" The priest asked. I found it a little funny that he didn't want to repeat himself.

"Yes." Jackson replied. He then started to blush, knowing he had said the wrong thing. "I mean I do."

"Okay then by the power vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife." The priest responded. "You may kiss the bride."

Jackson removed the veil from Siena's face and laid one on her. It was pretty romantic.

Later at the ceremony, Taylor and I were dancing together.

"So what does your brother do?" She inquired.

"He's a beta tester for a video game company." I explained. "He basically plays video games and tells the company what he thinks."

"Sounds like a pretty sweet job." Taylor commented. "So are you happy for him?"

"I am." I answered. "Siena's a great girl. I know because I told her my secret after a misunderstanding and she managed to keep it."

"I did too." Taylor remarked.

"What?" I asked in confusion.

"There's something I never told you." She said. "I went to your show in Crowley Corners a few years ago. I always wanted to see a Hannah Montana concert but you never came to Delaware. Then I heard the show was a benefit concert so I flew out there. I have to admit, I had a crush on you even then before I came out to my parents."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

"I figured you might think of me as some kind of stalker." She admitted. "I wanted to get to know a little better. I'm also a little disappointed that you never released that song as a single."

"I was actually about to sing it." I replied. "I think it's a good song to sing at a wedding."

We returned to the university on Sunday Night. Taylor was once again tired from the drive. I was too and I went to see if Lilly was still up. She was.

"Hey." I said to her.

"Did you do anything interesting back home?" She asked.

"Yeah I went to Jackson and Siena's wedding." I answered.

"Why didn't anyone tell me this?" Lilly questioned. "I would have wanted to go."

"Well Daddy didn't exactly tell me till I got there." I explained. "I also figured out that Saint Sarah stole from Rico's. So did you do anything here?"

"Well they found out something about the explosion." She told me. I listened as I waited for her to continue. "It turns out that one of speakers had a bomb in it."

So this chapter featured a lot of Hannah Montana characters. No knew characters in this chapter though. We also get confirmation that it was a bomb that caused the explosion. Please don't forget to review


	8. Stalk That Stalk

I was in English class. Professor Groves was giving a lecture on the Russian author Anton Chekhov.

"And one of the most important things that Chekhov mentions is if there is a gun in a story, it needs to be fired." She stated as the class started to write that information down. "But he wasn't just talking about a gun. He's basically say that everything that is mentioned needs to be used or it is not worth mentioning. I want you to keep this in mind when writing your short stories. Do not include anything that does not need to be there."

"So if we say that there is beer in the fridge, someone has to drink it?" I asked.

"Well they don't have to drink it." The professor explained. "But it at least needs to be referenced. It could be used to symbolize that the character is an alcoholic and did something important while he or she was drunk."

I was going to ask Taylor for a little bit of help when writing my story. I wasn't going to have her write it for but seeing as she was a Writing Major, I could probably get some feedback and suggestions from her.

After I got out of class, I happened to notice one Ashley Dewitt standing outside. I had recently heard that Amber had died in the hospital and there was one more count added onto the case. I decided that I would just ignore her.

"Hey." She greeted me.

"I don't want to hear it, Ashley." I told her. "I'm sorry for your loss but I don't want to hear it."

"I need your help." Ashley told me. Oh great. "I'm pretty sure that someone is stalking me. They keep leaving pictures of Amber on my door and doing stuff to remind me that she's dead."

"Why don't you talk to the police?" I asked.

"Because they don't care." Ashley responded. Well that didn't actually surprise me considering how much of a douche the chief of police was. "Look I'm sorry for all of the stuff that I did to you. Most of that was Amber's idea anyway. I'm not smart enough to think of those kinds of things anyway."

I guess because she was so stupid, I could rule her out as a possible suspect. I really don't think Ashley could come up with something as elaborate as an exploding speaker. That still didn't mean that I liked her.

"Fine I'll help you." I agreed. "But you are going to owe me so much for this."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll pay you whatever you want after you figure out who is it." She replied.

"It's not just money I want." I pointed out. "I also want you to leave me alone for the rest of the time that we're in college."

"Fine, whatever." She responded. "Just find out who it is."

"Okay do you have any leads that can give me?" I asked wondering if she knew what I meant. The perplexed look on her face told me otherwise. "That is any people that might want to do this to you."

"There's this girl named Frankie who is in my Geography class." Ashley explained. I began to wonder why she was in Geography but I also wondered how she had gotten into college in the first place.

"And do you think I could see your room to investigate?" I also asked.

"If you think that will help." She agreed. She didn't seem to understand how investigations worked. I walked with her to her room which was just down the hall from mine.

It looked kind of how I expected it would look. One side of the room was messy and the other looked as though it hadn't been touched in a while. I didn't see any clear clues, just a green Sharpie on the desk that she probably used to write.

"Okay so I'm going to go talk to this Frankie chick." I told her. As I walked toward the desk, I wondered to myself what somebody's motive for doing something like this would be. I mean yes Ashley was kind of a bitch but I don't know if she's done anything to anyone here.

I used my usual way of finding people: through Melanie.

"She's actually in class right now though." Melanie told me. I suppose that would give me time to work on my story a little. I couldn't help but notice that Drew was standing the hallway.

"Hey." She greeted me. "What are you up to?"

"I need to work out writing a short story for English." I explained. "How are things going with you?"

"Good, things are going good." She replied. "I heard you went to a wedding a few days ago. How was that?"

"Pretty good, it was my brother's." I explained. "What about you, have you done anything exciting recently."

"Not really." She responded.

"How's your relationship with Lilly?" I questioned.

"It's pretty good. It's interesting because both of us are dating girls for the first time." Drew explained. "So have you and Taylor had sex yet?"

"That's kind of a personal question." I responded. I then realized that Drew was one of my friends that I could share things like this with. "But yes we have had sex."

"Was it as good as everyone says that it is?" She asked curiously.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know how those lesbians are saying how much they like having sex with women." She replied. "Was it amazing?"

"I guess you could say that it was amazing." I agreed. "I'm not going to tell you what we did."

"Well I kind of want to have sex with Lilly." She stated. "Do you know if she had sex with anybody?"

"I'm pretty sure that she and Oliver had a lot of sex." I responded.

"So what kind of case are you working on right now?" She questioned. I guess she assumed that I was pretty much always working on one.

"I'm trying to find a stalker." I responded.

"That sounds like it might be hard." She commented.

"Yeah well I should really get to work on this story so I'll talk to you later."

I went into my room and began writing, which continued for about 30 minutes until Lilly returned from her Business class.

"Whatcha doing?" She asked.

"I'm writing a story for my English class." I replied.

"What's it about?" Lilly asked curiously.

"Well we're supposed to base it on something that happened in our lives so I'm writing about a teenage girl who is really a famous…actress." I told her.

"That's about as close to you as you can get." Lilly replied with a laugh. "What did you name her Riley or something?"

"No I named her Emily since it's an anagram of my name." I answered.

"Hmm I like the name Emily." Lilly commented. "I think it's a good name for a person to have."

"I'm glad you like it." I replied with a giggle. "So how was your Business class? What would you do with a business degree anyway or have you not quite figured that out yet?"

"I was thinking that I could open my own dance studio as soon as I get out of college." She replied.

"Sounds like that could be interesting." I commented. "So how are things going between you and Drew?"

I decided that I wanted to hear Lilly's side as well.

"I think things are going pretty well." Lilly said. "We never fight about anything. It's like she's the perfect girlfriend or something."

"Yeah that seems a bit odd for someone that doesn't really have any experience dating girls." I commented. I couldn't help but wonder why that was. "But still I guess you don't have to worry about much."

"What about you and Taylor?" She asked. Why did I know that this question was coming? "Maybe you could get her to help you with your story."

Okay that I was not expecting.

"Well I was going to do that." I told her. "But I'm not going to ask her for anything more than suggestions. Anyway I should probably go try to find this girl that I need to talk to."

"What's her name?" Lilly asked.

"Frankie Zion." I responded.

"The competitive surfer?" Lilly asked incredulously. "I didn't know that she went here."

Well now I knew something about her. I went down to meet her.

"Hi Frankie." I greeted her.

"Hi Miley." She responded. "What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you knew Ashley Dewitt by any chance." I asked. She had such a tanned and toned body but I guess you could expect that from surfers.

"Unfortunately I do." She answered. "We had to work on a project for Geology together and it was a disaster."

"She told me it was Geography." I pointed out, wondering if Frankie could possibly be lying due to the information discrepancy.

"She thinks it's Geography." Frankie told me. "She didn't even know any of the material yet she's still in the class. I'm appalled by the fact that I had to share a grade with her but I couldn't fail because I would lose my scholarship."

"I'm surprised that you need a scholarship being a competitive surfer and all." I told her.

"Well in surfing you get money based on how you place. If you win, you get more money. The highest I've placed is 8th which is only worth about 10000." She explained. "I need my scholarship as I continue to get better."

"So someone has been leaving her photos and notes about her dead friend. Do you know anything about that?" I asked.

"No I didn't." Frankie remarked. "It's not something that I would do because I do not want to lose my scholarship."

"Do you happen to know anyone else who dislikes Ashley?" I inquired.

"Yeah Tim Bradshaw used to date her." Frankie informed. "He lives in the Pi Omega Phi house."

I decided that before I went to Greek Row, I would visit Taylor first. Her dorm was kind of on the way any. I sat in the lobby and waited for my sexy girlfriend.

"It's such a nice thing to see you out here waiting for me." Taylor remarked as she walked into the lobby.

"Well I like to surprise you." I responded. Hmm maybe I should get her some kind of jewelry soon. We have been dating for about a month. Was that too soon to get someone a gift? "I have this story that I am writing for English. I was wondering if I could have your help."

"Asking me for writing advice, I was wondering when this day would come." Taylor replied with a giggle. "Let's go to my room."

This was only the second time that I would be going to Taylor's room. Taylor opened the door and a girl with Hispanic features was inside.

"I'm sorry you two have never met but this is Caroline, my roommate." Taylor explained. I don't know if I wanted to be in the room at that moment.

"Hi. I've got to go to Econ but I'll see you later." Caroline remarked as she walked out the door. Well that solved that.

Taylor and I sat down on her bed and I gave her what I had written so far.

"Do you want me to be honest?" She asked.

"Yes." I replied.

"Well this story is kind of terrible." She told me. "The idea's not bad but you have quite a few spelling errors."

"Well that's something that I can fix in proofreading." I pointed out.

"Yeah but you have to make sure that you catch them." Taylor pointed out. "You don't know what too many spelling errors can do to a story. They can literally make a good concept a poorly written story."

"Well if you want to proofread it when I'm done, you're welcome to." I suggested. "So I never did really ask you what you think of Professor Groves."

"I like her." Taylor declared. "I think that she's a great teacher. She really knows her stuff when it comes to writing. Did you know that she's work on her first novel?"

"Yes I have heard that." I remarked. "I think I might buy it when it comes out."

"So are you still solving mysteries?" She asked. "I know that some of these are important but I was really hoping that I could take you to a movie tonight. That is if you want to go."

"I would love to go and this one's not that important." I commented. "I don't even really like the girl that I'm working for. She was one of my high school bullies."

"Then why are you working for her?" Taylor asked.

"Because if I'm going to be doing this, I can't always work for people that I like." I responded. "I know I have no reason to but I also feel bad for her because she lost her best friend."

"You have such a good heart Miley." Taylor complimented. "You know that really is a turn on for me."

I smiled as I knew what was going to happen next.

Once we were done and started to put our clothes on, Taylor spoke. "So where do you want to go to dinner? I was thinking we should get fast food somewhere before we see the movie."

"How about we get some In-N-Out?" I suggested.

"Sounds delicious." She responded.

So we went and ate dinner. We were out in public so we had to be a little careful. I think we had to worry about people taking pictures with their cellphones than actual paparazzi. Once we got to the movie theatre, I knew I could be a little more affectionate. I think people were more interested in the movie than seeing us. We ended up seeing this movie called _Drive_. It starred Ryan Gosling, also known as that guy from _The Notebook_, as a driver for the mob. It was actually quite good. I think _Rolling Stone_ might have called it the best movie of the year or something.

I decided that by the time that we got back, it was too late to go to the frat house. I guess I could go there tomorrow. I mean I don't think much could change between now and then. I went to my dorm and noticed the door was locked. I started to unlock it, only to be interrupted.

"Miley, do you think you can come back later?" Lilly asked. I then heard moaning. Oh my god, I'm glad I did not open that door. I decided to knock on Mikayla's door.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"Well since our roommates are busy having sex with each other, do you want to talk?" I questioned.

"What would we talk about?" Mikayla asked me quizzically. I noticed a piece of paper on her desk.

"Are you writing a new song?" I asked.

"Maybe." Mikayla blushed.

"Can I hear?" I asked.

She took out her guitar and smiled.

_Oh, oh, oh...  
>Oh... Oh... Oh, oh...<br>Oh, oh, oh...  
>Oh... Oh... Oh, oh...<br>You walk and talk  
>Like you're some new sensation<br>You move in circles  
>You don't need an invitation<br>You spend your money  
>You can get no satisfaction<br>You play it right so you can get the right reaction_

It won't be long my darling  
>Pick up the phone<br>Nobody's on it  
>Where are your friends now baby<br>Aren't they the ones supposed to be there for...

...you...! (you...!)  
>When you're falling down<br>The world starts spinning out,  
>You...! (you...!)<br>When you're falling down  
>Now it's not all about,<br>You...! (you...!)  
>When you're falling down,<br>You know I'll be around...  
>When you're falling down, falling down!<p>

"That's all I got." She told me.

"Do you want me to help?" I asked.

"No I would appreciate if you didn't have a writing credit for my song." She responded. Okay that was a little harsh but I understood it. Multiple writers meant that you get less money because it has to be split up.

"What if I didn't take credit for it?" I questioned.

"Then I would feel bad for not giving it to you." She replied. "I have to do this by myself."

"So do you always write in your underwear?" I asked.

"Is that weird?" She questioned.

"It's a bit odd but that's not something that you would be able to do if you were working with other writers." I pointed out.

"I know that." She remarked, sounding a little irritated. The door suddenly started to open and I figured that Drew and Lilly were done. I was not going to grill Lilly on her first lesbian sexual encounter.

The next day, I went to the frat house to see if I could find Tim. The fact that it was a frat house made it harder to find individual people. I did find someone who was able to send me to Tim's room. It turned out that this was some sort of music fraternity.

"What can I do for you?" Tim asked. That was when I noticed a photo.

"You're Carrie's brother?" I asked.

"Yeah I am. Why does she need something?" He asked.

"No I wanted to talk about Ashley Dewitt actually." I responded.

"There's not much to say." Tim remarked. "We went on 2 dates. I could tell that she was emotionally damaged from her friend being in a coma. She wasn't the kind where she just wants sex damaged either so I ended it. "

I strongly doubted that this guy was the culprit. He seemed like a douche, but he wasn't the culprit.

I went back to the dorm and started to ponder a few things. I asked a few people and everything seemed come up empty. I found Drew in the lobby and decided to see what she thought of it.

"What's up?" Drew asked.

"I'm kind of stuck on this case." I announced. I explained to her about the stalker and how I had no lead.

"Did you ever think that maybe she's faking it?" Drew asked.

"That wouldn't make any sense." I remarked before I remembered what Professor Groves had told me about Chekhov. The sharpie in the room was the same color as the messages.

I stormed over to Ashley's room and banged on the door. Ashley opened the door with a look of confusion on her face that for once I was not buying.

"I can't believe you." I told her. "You deliberately sent me on a wild goose chase."

"Yeah I was the brains of the operation all along." She replied.

"So then did you kill Amber?" I asked since she now seemed cunning enough to do so.

"I am not that kind of person." She remarked. "Amber was still my friend and it really was a coincidence that I wasn't in there."

I don't know if I believed her but I didn't have any evidence implicating her. I walked back toward my room when Melanie found me in the hall.

"Miley I need to tell you that your girlfriend is in the hospital." She replied. When did that happen?

I headed to Stanford University Medical Center and got into Taylor's room. As it turned out, she had a sprained muscle in her leg and a concussion.

"So do you remember what happened to you?" I asked Taylor.

"I was returning to my dorm when I think someone pushed me down the stairs." She replied.

"Do you remember who it was?" I asked.

"No." She replied. I couldn't help but wonder if someone had attacked her because they knew that I was working on trying to solve the explosion.

"Taylor, I have a feeling that you were pushed because of me." I stated. "I don't think that I could stand to see you hurt again. I want you to know that I care deeply for you but until I can solve this case I can't be with you."

"Are you breaking up with me?" She asked.

"I'm really sorry." I told her. "I'll find out who did this but we need to take a break."

So it's hard to be a detective and have loved ones. Anyway for characters in this chapter, Frankie is played Ashley Benson. Tim is played by Chad Duell and Caroline is played by Christian Serratos. You can feel the drama building. Don't forget to review.


	9. Push, Don't Fall

I walked back from the parking lot to the dorm in tears. I didn't want to break up with Taylor but I knew that I had to because I was putting her in danger. She had already gotten hurt and I would not let that happen again. I wouldn't date anyone until I solved the big case because I didn't want to put anyone else in harm's way. I just hoped that whoever this was would stay away from my friends. I couldn't exactly avoid contact with Lilly and Drew. Lilly has the right to know these things and Drew has been pretty helpful in solving cases.

I also needed to figure out who pushed Taylor down the stairs. That was my top priority right now. Don't get me wrong, if I was able to solve the bomb case first I would take that, but I really wanted to know who hurt Taylor.

I walked into my room where Lilly was already asleep. I decided I didn't have anything better to do than go to sleep myself. There was probably nothing that I could do about Taylor now as much as I wanted to do something and Taylor didn't remember either.

I woke up in the morning and headed to Sociology. I looked for Drew but couldn't seem to find her. She didn't seem to be there when class started so I decided to talk to this other girl that I ended up sitting next to.

"Isn't Professor King so hot?" She asked me.

"I guess you could say that he is." I agreed. "I don't believe that I know your name."

"I'm Katie…Tiaffer." She answered. She had dark black hair and skin that was kind of white and kind of tan and kind of Asian. I didn't want to ask what her race was.

"So what do you like to do…other than stare at the professor?" I asked.

"I like to eat Italian food, watch soap operas, and takes pictures." She explained.

"So are you a Photography Major?" I asked.

"Uh-huh." She answered. "What about you? What's your major?"

"Well I'm undeclared for this semester but I am leaning towards Criminal Justice. I've sort of been doing detective work when I've had time." I explained. I don't know why I just told her that.

"Oh do you think you can do me a favor then?" She asked as I looked at her.

"That would depend on what it is." I replied.

"I need you to find out who my friend's secret boyfriend was." She told me.

"That shouldn't be that hard." I commented. "Can I talk to her?"

"Actually you can't." She responded. That left me confused. "She was killed in the concert explosion."

"So you want me to figure out who she was dating even though she's dead?" I asked.

"Yes that's right." Katie told me. "I know it's a little strange but I really think finding out the secret would help me get some closure if you know what I mean."

"What about finding out who killed her?" I asked. "What's her name, anyway?"

"Well that would be helpful but I'd still wonder who she was dating." She remarked. Okay now that was a little strange. "Her name was Jezebel Romero."

"I guess I can look into it." I said. "Do you have any names of people that I can talk to?"

"Well you could talk to Melanie Watkinson about it. She's the one who told me that she thought she was seeing someone." She responded. I let out a gasp. "What do you know her or something? Is she not someone you can really talk to?"

"No, it's just she's my RA." I explained.

"Oh I'm an RA too." She commented. "Yeah Melanie and I are friends but what got stuck in different dorms. I'm in Roble."

"That's the same dorm that Taylor is in." I remarked.

"Taylor Roy, the girl who fell down the stairs last night?" Katie asked. "You know her?"

"I was actually dating her." I stated. "Only I don't think that she fell."

"You think someone pushed her." Katie asked in slight shock.

"Well she told me someone pushed her but she couldn't tell me who because she had a concussion." I told her. "Do you think I could ask around the dorm?"

"Sure I could make an announcement." She suggested.

"I would appreciate if you didn't." I responded. "That would give whoever did it an opportunity to cover their tracks."

"Okay I won't say anything then." She agreed.

After class was over, I found Drew standing outside.

"Why weren't you in class?" I asked.

"I was just feeling really tired and didn't feel like getting up." She replied as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I'm surprised that you came. I heard Taylor was in the hospital. What happened?"

"Someone pushed her down the stairs." I replied. "And I ended up breaking up with Taylor because I was guilty about her getting hurt because of me."

"Are you sure that it had something to do with you?" Drew asked.

"I can't think of any other reason why someone would want to hurt her." I told her. "I'm going to go over tonight to see if I can get some answers. Right now I need to talk to Melanie to see if I can get some information one of the people who died in the explosion. And this time I'd be actually get the info directly from her."

I walked back to my dorm and headed to info desk where Melanie was of course.

"Who do you need me to locate now?" Melanie questioned before I could saw anything.

"Jezebel Romero." I responded. I could have sworn that I saw Melanie blink.

"Miley, you know Jezebel was killed in the explosion, don't you?" She asked in concern.

"Yes but I heard from someone that might be able to give me information on who someone that she was secretly dating." I explained. "Can you?"

"I can't tell you much." She declared. "I can only tell you that I think it started at the end of last semester. She was going off-campus a lot so I'm pretty sure that it was someone who lives off-campus."

"Is there anyone that you might suspect?" I asked.

"Well I know this guy named Isaac Day was someone that she seemed to be close to." Melanie informed. "He's in one of the apartments this semester."

"Well that's convenient." I commented as I waited for her to write down the apartment number and give it to me. "Thank you."

"You're welcome as always." Melanie replied. "Good luck."

I walked down to apartment complex, which was a little farther than I anticipated, and found Isaac's room. I knocked on the door and he answered it.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Hi I understand that you were friends with Jezebel Romero." I stated.

"I was." He confirmed.

"I understand that before her death, she was dating someone." I said. "I was wondering if you were that person."

"Nope it wasn't me." Isaac explained. "She said that she was dating an older guy and I'm three months younger than she was."

Hmm that was an interesting piece of information. I couldn't help but wonder how much older.

After my Geometry class, I headed down to Roble to see if I could get any information about who pushed Taylor. I decided to ask around, looking to see if I could find any witnesses. I found the person who called 911. The bad news was the fact that he didn't see anyone push her. I then had an idea. I had Katie call everyone in the dorm outside. Since they didn't know what it was for, whoever the culprit was wouldn't be able to cover their tracks.

Once everyone was outside, I spoke.

"Greetings everyone." I announced. "As you may know, someone from this dorm fell down the stairs last night. I don't think this was an accident. If you know anything about someone who may have pushed her, please let me know."

I then noticed someone running. I figured that she was the culprit. I started to run behind her and chased her all the way to the curb before I caught up to her.

"Did you push Taylor down the stairs?" I asked the blonde with pixie cut. I wanted to know why."

"Yes but I only did what I was asked to do." She answered.

"Who asked you to do it?" I questioned.

"I can't say." She answered. "I've already said too much."

She then tried to run across the street. I had to look away because she didn't make it. Because I was a witness, I had to stay and talk to the police. Jenette McClain was her name. I don't think she was connected to the bomb plot but she was probably working for the person that was. But because she dead, I no longer had a lead there. Suddenly my phone began to ring. It was Taylor.

"Taylor?" I asked. Why was she calling me now that we were broken up?

"I need a favor." She stated. "I need you to pick me up from the hospital."

"Can't you get someone to do it?" I asked.

"No you're the only one of my friends that has a car." She told me. I sighed.

"I'm on my way." I replied.

I drove to the hospital and I was sure to have an uncomfortable ride home from the hospital. I don't understand why Taylor couldn't have just called a cab.

I went to check her out of the hospital. She walked out to my car on crutches.

"So did you find out who pushed me?" Taylor questioned.

"Yeah I did." I answered simply.

"Did you find out why?" She added.

"She said someone told her to do it." I explained. "I couldn't find out whom because she was hit by a car and died."

"Miley can you please reconsider breaking up with me?" She requested. "I promise that I will be more careful. I won't let anyone hurt me again. I just really want to be with you right now."

"I'm sorry but I can't." I responded. "I need to find out who is responsible for this before I can be with anyone. Maybe after I do, we can get back together. But for the record, I also don't want you helping me."

"What are you doing for Jezebel?" Taylor asked as she saw the name in my car.

"You knew her?" I asked as she nodded. "I'm trying to find out who she was dating before she died."

"I think she might have been dating one of her professors." Taylor responded. "I'm not sure which one it was though."

It took Taylor back to her dorm. Before heading back to my own. I couldn't the information that I needed this time because Melanie was off-duty. I guessed that I would have to wait until morning to get the information that I needed from her. I couldn't help but wonder what I was going to do until then. The fact that I was broken up with Taylor didn't make my night easy to plan. It was at that time that I noticed that Mikayla was in the lobby. I decided that I could talk to her since she definitely seemed not to hate me anymore.

"Hey." I greeted her as she looked up at me. "Did you ever finish that song?"

"No but I think that it's pretty that I'm not working on it write now since I'm not in my underwear." She responded. I don't know why she had to answer like that.

"Okay you don't have to get snippy with me. I was just asking." I replied as I took a seat next to her. I don't know if she seemed upset that I was sitting there but I stayed there anyway because it would be silly of her to be. "So how are your classes going?"

"Why are you talking to me?" She countered.

"I want to be friends with you Mikayla." I told her. "I thought that we were becoming friends."

"I still don't know if I want to be friends with you after you lied to me like you did." She explained. "It really writes to know that your friends are keeping secrets from you."

"Mikayla, I had several good reasons for not telling you." I reminded her. "I mean for one you would have hated me regardless of whether or not I told you and I honestly didn't have a lot of faith in you to keep the secret but I am sorry for how I treated you back then."

"I guess I'm sorry too." She reciprocated. "I was wrong on me to think that way. I mean just because we were rivals, didn't mean that we couldn't be friends. I mean I'm pretty that Brittney and Christina were pretty good friends for the first few years before Christina started dating Justin."

"At least Jake wasn't going out with both of us like Aaron Carter was." I replied. "I can't believe that Lindsay and Hilary didn't unite against a common enemy rather than taking it out on each other."

"I miss seeing them in movies." Mikayla commented. "I know Lindsay's personal life is a real mess but what's Hilary's excuse."

I never thought of it but I realized that it had been several years since I had seen Hilary Duff in a movie. I know that she a guest spot on _Gossip Girl_ but her character didn't stick around. What had happened there?

"Well Hilary's pregnant now." I reminded Mikayla. "I think she was supposed to be in this Bonnie and Clyde thing but she dropped out."

"Well I haven't exactly been asked to be in any movies either." Mikayla commented. "What's this about some movie that you were supposed to play Tom Cruise's daughter? I heard you dropped out."

"I dropped out so I could go to college." I responded. "I figured that I would still have chances to do things. I promised Lilly that I would go to college with her and I'm sticking to it."

"That sounds really nice." Mikayla commented. "You're such a good person despite the fact that you lied to me. I guess I can see why you did that."

I then noticed that Mikayla was pretty close to my lips. I would have kissed her but then I backed up.

"Mikayla, I can't do this." I told her. "I just got out of a relationship like yesterday and I'm not really looking to start a new one right now. I'm sorry."

Mikayla huffed and walked over to her room. Yeah it seemed that I upset her. I sighed and went to my own room to talk to Lilly about it. I wouldn't even mind if Drew was there as long as their hands weren't all over each other.

"What's up?" Lilly asked as I walked into the room.

"I'm pretty sure that Mikayla hates me again." I explained.

"Why do think that?" Lilly asked.

"Well she tried to kiss me and I rejected her." I explained. "I mean I almost kissed her but I back out at the last second. I don't why I even almost did it. I just broke up with Taylor and I don't want to start a new relationship so soon and probably don't want to at all."

"You probably just had a moment with her." Lilly suggested. "It can really happen with anyone. All that matters is how we choose to react to them."

"How did you get so insightful?" I questioned.

"Drew and I have been going through our romance movies." She replied. I really didn't want to hear about any moments that happened there. But I guess it was nice that Lilly was in love with Drew and I kind of preferred it to her relationship with Oliver because they usually weren't over each other like they were trying to shove their relationship down my throat. It was also good that she was happy again after Oliver's death/and not holding on to something that wouldn't happen. He wasn't coming back.

"So are you upset about Taylor/" Lilly asked.

"Well mostly I'm glad that she's okay." I explained. "I do wish that I could still be with her but I know that I can't. I also want you and Drew to be pretty careful because I don't know if this person will go after either of you."

"I'll make sure to tell her about it." Lilly promised. I really hoped that they wouldn't. I wanted to not tell them any more progress that I was making. I did wonder who the person pulling the strings seemed to be.

The next morning before I went to class, I asked Melanie if she could give me Jezebel's schedule for the last semester.

"You really think that she was dating one of her professors?" Melanie asked.

"Well I want to find out." I admitted as she printed it for me. I needed to get breakfast and head to English so I didn't really have time to look at any of the teachers. I don't know exactly I would be able to get one of them to admit that he was having sex with a student. It was a little disgusting to me. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that. I mean those relationships were forbidden by the school. I guess it doesn't matter who you have a connection with but I would never do it with a teacher of mine that was male or female.

After English I looked through the list. I noticed one name in particular. It was the most surprising and then I realized what Katie had told me when I first talked to her. She had told me that she thought Professor King was hot and Professor King had said that he was close to some of the students who had died. Oh god. Had he killed them to keep them quiet?

SO this chapter brings out another possible suspect. Miley is definitely going to have to look into that. Casting in this chapter includes Teddy Geiger as Isaac, Janel Parrish as Katie, and Lisa Pace (Jonica from South of Nowhere) plays Jenette. Please don't forget to review and happy Valentine's Day. Now is an okay time to make guesses but I won't tell you if you're right.


	10. Let It Key

Okay so while this information is useful, it's still not enough. I only have an assumption that Professor King killed Jezebel. It also brings out the question of why kill the others if he only wanted her dead. I know the sentence would be shorter for one count of murder rather than 9. It may be less conspicuous but it seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to kill one person. Maybe I can find some connection between Jezebel and the other victims. I'm pretty sure that the professor did not know Oliver and I would withhold this information from the dean until I could find out more because I feel it will be easier to get what I need while he is here.

"Did you discover something?" Melanie asked as I walked back into the dorm.

"Yeah but due to Taylor's injury, I kind of want to keep it myself." I explained. "The less people know right now, the better."

That also meant that I wasn't going to tell Lilly or Drew this information. Sure they might want to know but I am protecting them by not telling them and I believe that that is the right thing to do.

I knew that I needed to get the names of all of the people that died in the explosion. Well I doubt Oliver's bandmates were that important in terms of the investigation. They were just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I suppose Oliver could have been as well. Actually the Professor King theory is the only one that I got. But I don't even have a clear motive there. I would have to find out if Jezebel was blackmailing him or something. Even if she was, I still don't know if that's a clear motive. I should talk to Katie more about this or maybe as much as I would like to avoid her, I should talk to Taylor since she seems to know stuff.

Later in the day, after my Spanish class, a girl walked up to me. My thought was that she was total BABE.

"Can I help you?" I asked her as I tried not to stare at her boobs.

"Yeah my name is Maddie Harrison, and I work for the Stanford Daily." She told me. That was the school paper. "I understand that you were close with Oliver Oken. We're interviewing people who were close to the victims of the explosion. Do you mind if I talk to you?"

"Sure I guess so." I remarked. Maybe I could use this to get information on the last victim. "Do you want to talk right now?"

"If you're free." Maddie responded.

"Do you have somewhere we can talk?" I asked.

"We can talk in my dorm room." Maddie offered.

I then remembered something. It was open mike in my dorm and I had promised I would sing.

"Actually I just remembered that I can't." I told her. "Do you think that we can talk later tonight?"

"Sure, how's 10:00 sound?" She asked.

"Sounds good." I replied.

I headed back to the dorm. It turned out I wasn't going to be the first to sing. That would be Drew.

_Trying not to pretend it won't happen again and again like that  
>I never thought it would end cause you got up in my head in my head like that<br>You made me happy baby, love is crazy, so amazing  
>But it's changing, rearranging, I don't think I can take anymore<em>

_Cause the world's burned up and I fell down  
>And it turned into whatever now they're saying never<br>Feel the fire cause it's all around  
>And it's burning for forever and always<br>We gotta let it go be on our other way  
>And live for another day<br>Cause it aint the same my baby  
>Watch it falling to the ground<br>No happy ever after just disaster_

_You shot the bullet, you shot the bullet that killed me,  
>Not feeling my heart beat, and now it's dying.<br>I am through it, I-I am through the agony,  
>Now my eyes are drying, drying,<br>No more crying,  
>Lying's just a game.<br>So disaster strikes,  
>And I'm alright<br>'cause my love's on its way... yeah  
>Burning up forever and always... yeah<em>

_Cause the world's burned up and I fell down  
>And it turned into whatever now they're saying never<br>Feel the fire cause it's all around  
>And it's burning for forever and always<br>We gotta let it go be on our other way  
>And live for another day<br>Cause it aint the same my baby  
>Watch it falling to the ground<br>No happy ever after just disaster_

Drew was actually pretty good. I wonder if she wrote that song herself. After she was done singing, I decided to sing a cover of _Landslide_ by Fleetwood Mac.

"So did you write that song?" I asked Drew after everyone had finished.

"Yes I wrote it about my relationship with Bryan." She explained. "So did you find out anything interesting information about the explosion recently?"

"Nope." I lied. This is what I had to do. I know withholding information from my friends was wrong but I didn't really want to further drag them into this. It was the way it had to be "Anyway I have to go do an interview for the school paper. I should be back here…sometime tonight."

I headed down to Maddie's dorm. I noticed there was a sign on the door that made it aware she had a roommate. I hoped that wouldn't be a problem considering how late it was. I knocked on the door and she let me in.

"So is your roommate okay with us being here so late?" I asked.

"Actually I don't have a roommate." She replied.

"But the sign…" I remarked.

"Li was killed in the explosion." Maddie replied. Well now I feel horrible. "That's the reason why I chose to take this story."

"I'm so sorry." I replied.

"Hey we've all lost someone ." She replied as she wiped a tear from her eye. "Let's get started. How long did you know Oliver?"

"We met in 5th grade so that would be 8 years." I explained.

"We the two of you just friends?" She asked.

"Yes." I answered. "He had a crush on Hannah Montana several years ago but that cool when he found out it was me. He was dating my best friend."

"Do you think you were one of his musical influences?" She questioned.

"Yeah I would think that he was interested in it because I was successful at it." I explained. I then looked around the room. I noticed a box with a lock on it. "Do you mind if I ask what's in that box."

"I don't know." Maddie responded. "It was Li's. She gave someone the key before she died. I would have a locksmith open it but there's open problem with that: I don't have any money."

"If you want, I can try to find the person who has the key." I offered.

"I would like that." Maddie replied. "I kind of want to know what's in the box. Li had a few secrets that she wouldn't tell me. I know it might be against her wishes but I feel like I need to know."

"Can you think of anyone who she might have given it to?" I asked.

"She may have given it to her brother Yang." Maddie suggested. "He doesn't go here though. He's at San Jose State."

"Well I'll go there tomorrow." I promised. "Thanks for the info."

"Thanks for the interview." Maddie countered.

So after the interview was done, I headed back to the room to see if Lilly was still up. She was changed for bed but not yet asleep.

"Where did you go?" She asked.

"I was doing an interview for the school paper about Oliver." I explained.

"Oh." She replied. "How did it go?"

"It went okay." I replied. "I'm also going to start looking for a key tomorrow. I need to go to San Jose State."

"What's at San Jose State?" Lilly questioned.

"The girl who owned the key's brother." I explained. "She was killed in the explosion too."

"Do you think it will have any sort of clues?" She inquired. I actually had not thought of that possibility.

"No, the girl's roommate just wants to know what's inside of it." I explained. I would see if any of it was useful, though. "So what did you think of Drew's song?"

"I thought it was great." Lilly beamed. "I had no idea that she could sing like that."

The next morning, I decided to make my trip to San Jose State before Geometry. It was just a review so I didn't have to go as long as I studied on my own time. I drove there and was able to find what dorm Yang Chen was in. I didn't really know what to expect from this guy.

"Hello?" He asked. He spoke with an American accent.

"Are you Yang Chen?" I asked him.

"Yes." He replied. "How can I help you?"

"I recently met Maddie, Li's roommate." I stated. He instantly frowned. "I know this is a lot to ask but your sister had a key to a box that's in her room. I was wondering if she gave it to you by any chance."

"No she didn't give it to me." He explained.

"Can you think of anyone else that she might have given it to?" I asked.

"She could have given it to her boyfriend Antonio Gutierrez." He replied. "Why do you need it anyway?"

"Maddie really wants to know what's in the box." I told him. "I'll talk to this Antonio guy. Thank you for your time."

I found out when I got back that Antonio went to home on weekends. I couldn't get his address and I wasn't going to do that. I could probably wait till Monday to find out.

I figured over the weekend, I should try to dig up some dirt on Professor King. The fact that he could be murderer and I've been in his class this whole semester scared me. I mean he didn't seem like the type of person that could do something like that. And it would not only make him a murderer but also the killer of one of my best friends and I would have died too if I hadn't left to get a drink. I had to find the answer to this but first I had to go to Geometry.

After Geometry, I headed down to Taylor's room to see if she could tell me anything else about Jezebel that was any bit useful. I nervously knocked on the door.

"Coming!" Taylor called through the door as she limped to answer it. "Miley…"

"I need to talk to you." I told her. "I'm gonna say now that it's not about us getting back into a relationship."

"Then what is it about?" She asked.

"Is there anything else that you can tell me about Jezebel?" I asked. "I have a pretty good idea who she was seeing but I want to know for sure. Did she seem to acting any different at the time you last saw her, other than that she was possibly hiding something?"

"I don't know if I can really help you, Miley." Taylor admitted. "But who do you think she was seeing?"

"I'm fairly certain that she was seeing my Sociology teacher Professor King." I replied. I realized that this was the first person that I was telling. I don't know why I was telling her.

"So she was seeing her teacher, what's the big deal?" Taylor asked. I do realize unless you knew that the rest of what I was thinking, it wouldn't seem major. It might seem like the average student teacher relationship but this could have been much worse.

"I really don't think that I should tell you." I responded.

"Miley, you can't tell me that and expect me to not want to know more." She said.

"I think he could have possibly killed her and the rest of the people in the auditorium." I explained.

She gasped. "If that's what you think, you need to tell the police." She responded.

"I don't really have any evidence." I remarked. "I'm not going to ruin a potentially innocent man's reputation."

"But you told me that you think that he did it." She argued. "Do you think he is a murderer or not?"

"I don't know what to think right now." I relented. "I mean the possible is there but I can't bring anything to support it."

"So what are you going to do?" She asked. "Are you still going to go to his class?"

"I still I should." I admitted. "I don't want him to get suspicious or anything."

"You need to be careful." Taylor reminded me. "This guy could be a murderer."

"I know." I replied. "So how is leg feeling?"

"I'm too zonked out on medicine to feel anything." Taylor explained. "It would probably hurt if I wasn't."

"You know you need to be careful too." I replied. "Just look out."

"Can I ask you something?" She requested.

"What is it?" I questioned.

"I wanted to know if you would stay with me for a little while." She inquired. "It's so boring basically having to be in bed all day. Maybe we can watch a movie or something."

"Could he watch something that doesn't involve romance?" I asked.

"How about we watch _The Social Network?_" She offered.

"Sure." I agreed. "You know I really thought that it should have won the Oscar but I guess old people disagree."

We ended up watching the movie. Every time I saw it, I hated Mark Zuckerberg but it wouldn't make me stop using Facebook. I don't think that Facebook would be helpful in solving either of the cases that I was working on right now. One thing that I notice was Taylor was cuddling with me while we were watching the movie. It was like the two of us never broke up. I'm not going to lie and say that it didn't feel nice. She did love her and I probably still did because I really haven't had time to get over her with so much drama happening right now. It took everything that I had not to kiss her. I can't do this. I can't do this until I figure out the case. I promised myself I wouldn't. I had a feeling that I was going to be crying as soon as I left the room.

That was exactly what happened but it didn't actually happen to I reached the steps of the dorm. The person who happened to see me cry was probably the most inconvenient. Of all people in the dorm, why did it have to be her?

"Are you crying?" She asked me.

"I don't want to talk about it, Mikayla." I told her.

"Well something's upsetting you and we're going to talk about it." She told me. "Now what is it?"

"You are probably the last person that wants to hear this." I replied. "It's about Taylor."

"Yes didn't you two break up a few days ago?" She asked and I nodded. "Then why are you still crying?"

"Because I went to see her today and I felt the things that I did before we broke up." I explained. I don't know why I was even talking to her.

"If you still feel the same then why did you break up with her?" She questioned.

"Why do you care?" I spat.

"I care because I don't like seeing you upset." She answered. "I like to see who smile."

"Well you probably won't be seeing many of those for a while." I told her.

"Why not? Why can't you smile?" She inquired.

"Because my best friend is dead and the killer is still at large and on top of I had to break up with a girl that I really like because I don't want her to get hurt again."

Mikayla gave me a hug which was basically a signal that it was okay to cry on her shoulder. I ended up doing that, wondering why was she was letting. I thought she hated me after I rejected her. Her actions didn't seem to be those of someone who hated me. I eventually went up to my room and went to sleep.

The weekend was uneventful. I didn't end up going to the football game because I didn't want to risk running into Professor King there. I laid low for most of the weekend to be honest.

On Monday, I did go to Sociology. I sat next to Drew and everything seemed to be normal. I tried not to act nervous. I made it through the whole class.

"Miley, can you stay behind?" He asked me. "I need to talk to you."

Oh great, now I had to be alone with him. This was definitely not something that I wanted. I went to his office hoping everything was okay.

"I need to talk to you about the project that you and Drew are doing." He told. I mentally breathed a sigh of relief before I explained the project to him.

After class I went to Antonio's room to see if I could find the key.

"What can I do for you?" Antonio asked.

"I was looking for a key that belonged to Li Chen." I stated. "It's supposed to open some sort of box."

"I know what key you're talking about." He remarked. "I don't have it but I think I know where it is. Have you checked between her mattresses?"

So I decided to go back to the room and Maddie let me in. I looked under the mattress and there was a key. I put it in the box and the lock opened.

"It worked." I announced even though she had seen me do it.

The first item in the box was a letter. I read it and noticed that it was to her from a guy named Andrew. Hmm that didn't seem like it was from Antonio. I then looked under the letter and noticed a picture of Professor King with a heart drawn around it.

So now we know that Professor King was involved with two of the girls that died. That definitely makes him look a lot more fishy. Plus the love triangle with Taylor and Mikayla is still around. Characters in this chapter include: Megan Fox as Maddie, Richard Chiu as Yang and Diego Boneta as Antonio. Please don't forget to review.


	11. Falling at the Worst Time

The evidence was definitely starting to build up against Professor King. However, I still don't know if he had an alibi. I can't just go and ask him because that probably wouldn't go well.

That night I was sleeping when I suddenly found myself inside of a strange dream.

_I was in the concert hall. The place was not broken up and Oliver was there. I looked around the room and found that all of the victims were there: Amber, Li, Darius, Jezebel, and Andre. I couldn't help but wonder why I was dreaming of this. Were they trying to tell me something? _

"_Oliver, what's going on?" I asked. _

"_What's going is you're getting close to finding out who caused the explosion." Oliver replied. _

"_We can't tell you who did it." Andre added. _

"_But the fact that all of died wasn't completely random." Darius replied. _

"_In fact some of us had a lot in common." Li said. _

"_What?" I asked. _

"_We can't tell you either." Jezebel replied. "But you're not looking in the right places."_

"_You need to find the fifth member." Li added. _

"_Fifth member of what?" I asked. I didn't get an answer because the room then exploded and I was woken from my dream. _

Damn it that wasn't really all that helpful at all. I wonder if there was any way I could get back there. What did they mean 5th member? Was this even a person?

I didn't go back into that dream. All I could do was think about it. I turned on the TV and noticed that Chief Sampson was on the news and declared that the police believed that Martin was the one responsible for the explosion based on the evidence that they had found. I wonder what evidence they found because there was nothing that wasn't circumstantial. They also declared that he apparently blew his own car up. That I definitely wasn't buying. Besides, I don't think that all of this stuff about Professor King could be a coincidence. Even if Martin was responsible, I don't think that he was the sole perpetrator.

I needed to keep looking into it but I would wait until after breakfast.

After I returned from breakfast, I noticed that Carrie was in the lobby. She looked over to me and I had a feeling that I would be solving another case for her. I couldn't help but wonder what this was going to be.

"Hi Carrie." I greeted.

"I need your help again, Miley." Carrie stated.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked.

"I need you to prove that Martin didn't cause the explosion." She replied. Okay now I was confused.

"Carrie, not too long ago you hated Martin." I pointed out. "Why do you want me to prove his innocence?"

"Because he was still a member of the program and I would like to know that he isn't a killer." Carrie explained. "I mean this kind of thing could tarnish our program forever."

"It's not going to be easy." I said. "Martin had the motive of always being in his brother's shadow and he had the technology to pull something like this off but I will look into it."

"Why, since you seem to think he's guilty that is?" She questioned.

"I never said that I think he's guilty." I responded. "There is someone else that I think may have been responsible for it. Do you have anything that I could possibly use in his favor?"

"He had a locker in the music building." She told me. "No one knows where the key is."

"No one?" I questioned.

"Well some of his friends might know where it is." She explained.

So it turned out that I would be working on two different cases. One would be to prove that someone did not cause the explosion and the other would be to try to prove that someone did. This definitely had to be irony. I knew I had to go to class because finals were going to be soon. I didn't know if I would actually have a final for Sociology because my professor may or may not be a mass murderer and that could prevent a test from happening.

My class was English. We were going over mysteries. This could be interesting.

"Now one way that writers use to have a potential suspect answer questions to say that the suspect isn't going to be only one questioned. Say the detective may pose as a survey taker or something and may ask the suspect seemingly random questions that are relevant to the case." Professor Groves lectured. Hmm that gave me an idea to question Professor King about his alibi.

Professor King happened to be at the cafeteria at the same time as me, so I decided to talk to him.

"What can I do for you, Miley?" He asked.

"I was just curious. I'm asking all of my teachers what they were doing on the night of the explosion. Would you mind sharing?"

"I was at church." He told me.

"Oh what church do you go to?" I asked seemingly interested.

"Wesley United Methodist church." He explained. "Is that all that you need?"

"Yeah." I answered. "Thanks."

So I would have to check with the pastor to see if his alibi held up. I would have to wait until tomorrow to do that because I had a pretty good that they had a Wednesday service.

I also wondered what I was going to do about this key for Martin. I had just found a key and now I would have to find another one. I walked back to the dorm and there was Drew sitting in the lobby. I wondered what she wanted to talk about. I noticed that she was wearing a strange t-shirt. It was a Giants shirt but it was apparently for Albert Pujols…even though he had never played for the Giants.

"Where did you get that shirt?" I asked her.

"My dad had it made for me before his accident." Drew explained. "He knew that Albert was going to be a free agent and hoped that the Giants would sign him so he bought me this."

"I don't think the Giants will sign him." I told her.

"Yeah I don't really either but it's still a nice shirt." She agreed.

"How did your dad die again?" I asked.

"He had a heart attack while driving." She explained. I winced. That sounded like a very painful way to go. "The heart attack didn't kill him but the impact from the crash did."

"I'm sorry." I replied.

"Well it at least he didn't really suffer." She replied. "Didn't you tell me that your mom died of cancer?"

"Yes." I responded. I suppose that was much worse. "So this is pretty morbid. Is there anything else that you want to talk about?"

"Do you wanna work on the project?" She asked. "You're not busy right now, are you?"

"No I have time." I agreed before the two of us went to her room. Mikayla had class. How I knew this I wasn't exactly sure but I don't think she would be interrupting us.

"So we're doing the paper on how sociopathy is portrayed in the media, right?" She asked.

"Yeah, that's right." I responded. "So are we each going to write half of the paper and then put it together?"

"I was thinking we could do alternating paragraphs." Drew suggested.

As we worked on the paper we ended up talking about a few examples. One was The Joker in _The Dark Knight._

"I don't think he was a sociopath." Drew replied. "We don't know enough about his backstory to make that claim. I think he was just a regular psychopath. But Heath Ledger did play with well. I think the villain from _No Country For Old Men_ would be a better example."

So we ended up getting our paper finished before Mikayla came back. Mikayla's feelings for me were definitely an issue and I kind of wanted to avoid her for the time being. Unfortunately that didn't happen because I ended up running into the dining hall after my Spanish class. She asked to sit with me and I wasn't going to be rude and say no.

"So how has your day gone?" She asked.

"It's been fine." I responded. "I got my paper done for Sociology."

"Yeah Drew was talking about wanting to do that with you." She replied. "So do you want to catch a movie tonight by any chance?"

"If I say yes, would you understand that it's definitely not going to be a date?" I asked.

"I'm okay with us just being friends." She told me. "I would like for us to go shopping again someone. Maybe you would actually enjoy it."

"You know I don't think I can go to the movies tonight." I replied. "I actually promised that I would do something for a case and it's kind of important."

"Fine but can we make a rain check?" She asked. "How's tomorrow?"

"I'm actually going to check out this church tomorrow night." I explained. "Are you free on Thursday?"

"Yeah I guess we can go on Thursday." She agreed. "So what do you need to do?"

"I'm trying not to tell anyone after what happened to Taylor." I explained. "It's best if I don't tell you."

It wasn't until I had left the dining hall that I remembered that I didn't know the names of any of Martin's friends. That would be a problem. I didn't exactly know where to find Carrie.

I went back to the dorm and decided to see if I could ask the one person that might be able to tell me where she was.

"Do you know if Carrie is here right now?" I asked Melanie.

"I haven't seen her." Melanie responded. "Are you doing another case for her?"

"I guess I am." I told her despite the fact that I had no idea where this one would lead. I might even end up discovering that he was guilty. "I guess you can let me know if you see here. Have fun working."

I decided to go for a walk to see if I could find Carrie. On my way, I noticed Taylor, still in crutches and apparently carrying a heavy bag. People seemed to be ignoring her. What was wrong with them?

"Here let my carry that for you." I offered as I took her bag.

"Thanks, Miley." She replied. "I'm heading up to my room right now."

I walked with her up the stairs and to her room. She opened the door and put I put her stuff down on her desk before she took a seat on her bed.

"I cannot wait till I don't need these crutches anymore." She commented.

"Yeah I bet it sucks." I agreed.

"You know you don't have to stay if you don't want to." Taylor told me.

"Well I'm already here so I might as well be here for a few minutes." I responded as I say on the bed next to her. I looked at her face and it was then that I remembered how pretty her eyes were. She didn't exactly tower over me but the difference in height between us was definitely noticeable. She just looked so positively beautiful right now. I couldn't help myself when I kissed her.

Kissing ended up leading to touching, which led to rubbing, which led to removal clothing, which led to sexual intercourse. That was definitely not what I wanted to do.

"Wow." Taylor commented. "That was amazing."

"I know but I really shouldn't have done it." I replied. "We're supposed to be broken up."

"But we're so good together." Taylor argued. "There had to be a reason why that just happened."

"The reason was that I wasn't thinking. I just got so lost in your beauty that I couldn't help myself." I explained. "I should go."

"You don't have to go, Miley Bear. I want you to stay so we can cuddle." She responded as I got out of bed and started to put my underwear on.

"Your roommate could be back any minute." I replied. "This was a mistake, Taylor. I'm sorry."

"Miley it's not a mistake! It's love." Taylor argued.

"Maybe it is." I admitted. "But I can't have love in my life right now. I feel that I'm close to solving this case and I don't want to put you in harm's way again. If we truly do love each other, we'll be able to get back together when all of this is over."

"Okay, I'll wait, but it won't be easy." She agreed as I put my dress and leggings on. It was definitely getting cold. I missed living in SoCal.

I knew I needed to vent this stuff and Lilly was the person that I wanted to talk to about it. It was a good thing that she was in the room.

"I need to talk to you about something." I told her. She turned to look at me attentively. It was ironic that Lilly was the one that I had original feelings for and I only got with Taylor because I didn't think Lilly was ready. "I slept with Taylor."

"I thought you broke up with her." Lilly remarked.

"I did." I confirmed. "The two of us ended up getting caught in a moment and you guess what happened from there. I don't know what to do about it."

"Well do you still love her?" She asked me.

"Well yeah but I don't want her to get hurt again." I explained. "I still feel guilty about her leg and I don't want anything else to happen to her."

"Have you told her that?" Lilly questioned.

"Yes I have but she doesn't believe that someone will try to hurt her again, especially since the person that pushed her down the stairs is dead." I replied. "But I'm pretty sure that that girl was working for someone else who is not dead and may send someone else to try to hurt her. I told her that we can wait until after I solved the case of the explosion and she seemed okay with that."

"If she did that what do you me to do then?" Lilly asked in confusion.

"I mainly just wanted you to listen." I said. "It's good to know that I can talk to you about these things."

"Yeah we've never had problems talking about relationships in the past." Lilly agreed as she gave me a hug. We talked about everything about my feelings for her. I wonder how things would have been different if I had made those known. It may not have changed anything or it may have changed everything.

I eventually did find Carrie and got a list of people who might possibly know the location of the key. I had to ask around but I eventually did find the location of it. Unfortunately by the time that I found it, the building was closed.

I decided to check it out after my classes were done on Wednesday. I think it might have been a restricted area because I had to go with Carrie. I looked through the locker for anything that could be related to the case. The most egregious thing I noticed was something that appeared to be a detonator.

"Carrie I don't think I can prove that he's innocent.' I told the girl. "However, I don't think that he was the sole person behind this."

"Well thanks for trying." She told me. "I wonder if I should transfer."

"Maybe you can try to establish the good of the program." I suggested. "You should prove that all of you techies aren't like Martin."

"I guess I can do that." Carrie agreed. "By the way, the term techie is offensive."

"Sorry." I replied.

I then headed down to the church. I couldn't talk to the pastor beforehand, so I had to stay for the service. I did notice that Professor King was not there. That was definitely something that was of note. I found the pastor after everything was done.

"Hi." I said to him.

"Hello child." He responded as he gave me a hug. It was a listen creepy but it was a welcoming custom."

"Do you the Sunday night programs?" I asked.

"Yes, I do all of the programs." He explained.

"Do you know if Andrew King was here on the night of September 4th?" I questioned.

"No I haven't seen Andrew in a while." The pastor replied. "How do you know him?"

"He's my Sociology professor." I explained. "Thanks for the info. He recommended this church and I was a little disappointed not to see him here."

I had recorded both my conversation with Professor King about his alibi and the previous conversation. Now I was sure that he was guilty. I grabbed the letter and headed down to the police station. I knew that I would need to talk to Chief Sampson directly. It meant that I might have to wait.

I didn't have to wait that long actually.

"What exactly are you doing here?" He asked me. "Are you still hung up on the explosion case? It's already been solved and the guy who did it is dead."

"But don't you wonder why he's dead?" I asked. "I also have evidence that Professor Andrew King was involved with two of the girls who died. Now I do think that Martin was guilty but I also think that after they killed everyone, Professor King planted a bomb in Martin's car and blew him up because he saw him as a liability. I also have two tapes that confirm him lying about his alibi."

I played the two tapes and showed him the letter. There was no way that he could overlook these pieces of evidence. I had something.

"Put out an arrest warrant for Professor Andrew King." The chief relented.

Okay so this is not the last chapter. The next chapter will be. Did Professor King do it? What does the 5th member mean? All will be revealed in the conclusion of the story. This also features the dead people. Darius is played by Kyle Massey, Andre is played by Ryan Montano, Li is played by Mallory Low, and Jezebel is played by Jane Levy. Also the pastor is played by Timothy Spall. Please don't forget to review.


	12. The Story of a Girl

Even though I was pretty sure that Professor King was guilty, for some reason the case still didn't seem solved. That 5th member was really starting to bug me. What the hell did they mean by that? Also after the arrest warrant was announced on campus, Ashley provided the police with evidence that Amber had slept with Professor King the night before the explosion. I don't know whether or not this was true but if it was, it definitely wouldn't help his case. The other action that was done in response was classes were to be cancelled until Professor King was found, since he had pretty much immediately gone AWOL.

Another issue that bugged me was why were Oliver and Darius killed? I could get Jezebel, Li, and Amber because they slept with the professor and Andre because Martin was tired of being in his shadow but why those two? In the dream they said that they were all connected. How were they connected? Was there another person involved with the case that I wasn't considering?

Since we didn't have class, I decided to head down to the local prison to see if I could ask the guards if they could tell me about any sociopaths. Even though the paper probably wouldn't be taken up, I had a feeling that Professor King himself was a sociopath and it might help to know what he might do. It turned out that the stuff I said about him was pretty accurate. They told me to be careful because he might do anything.

While I was at the prison, I couldn't help but notice that Bryan was there. I told the guards that I wanted to talk to him.

"What do you want?" Bryan asked.

"I guess I want to know why you chose to pirate movies." I stated.

"I did it so I could watch them whenever I wanted." He explained. "Is that so hard to understand?"

"But if we you were going to do that, why pay at all?" I asked. "Why not just sneak into the movie since you really didn't have much regard for the law?"

"It was a lot harder to get caught." He pointed out. I also wondered what he was doing the night of the explosion. "So you were with Drew the night that explosion happened, right?"

"No, I was at the movie theatre." He replied. "I didn't start dating her until after the explosion."

Okay now that was very interesting. If it wasn't Bryan, who was this guy that Drew had a hot date with that night? I guess I should ask her.

I went back to the dorm and found Drew sitting on the couch.

"So I just saw Bryan in prison." I stated. "He said that you two didn't start dating until after the explosion."

"That's right." She confirmed.

"Then who did you go out with?" I asked.

"Well I didn't actually meet the guy because the news of the explosion came out and I decided to go and comfort Lilly." She explained.

"What was his name?" I asked.

"I don't know." She replied. "It was a blind date and I never met the guy."

"Okay." I replied. "So what do you think about the fact that Professor King killed those people?"

"It's really hard to process." She replied as she shifted positions. "He's my advisor and I really had no idea that he was capable of that kind of stuff. He would have thought that our Sociology teacher would be a sociopath. That just makes the paper that we did seem very ironic."

I then decided to go over to the desk to talk to Melanie.

"Hi." I told her.

"Hey." She reciprocated.

"So if anyone asks for me, tell that I'm not working on any cases until after the case with the explosion is solved." I told her.

"Okay I'll make sure to do that?" She replied. "Do you really think you can solve it?"

"I hope that I can." I replied. "There are just a few things that I don't get."

"Like what for example?" She asked.

"I just don't understand why he chose the concert hall. I also don't understand why he chose to set the bomb off at that specific time and how he even knew that the people he wanted to kill were even there. There's also the fact about the other casualties."

"Well I can't tell you about anything else." She responded. "Maybe Mark can help you figure some of this stuff out."

I decided that going to a computer genius could be potentially helpful. Mark was able to tell me that a phone call was placed from the concert hall around the time of the explosion.

"Do you think you can access it?" I asked.

"I probably can but it will take me a little time." He replied. "I'll let you know when I get to it."

I figured that phone call was an important piece of evidence. It may have been to tell Martin and Professor King that everyone was there. It could also tell me if another person was involved.

I went out and managed to find Theo. I wondered if he could tell me about Darius that might make him a target.

"So what can you tell me about Darius?" I asked. "Do you know if he had any enemies? Did he pick on anybody?"

"No Darius was a pretty nice guy." Theo explained. "He also was a pretty good singer."

"Did he happen to know Martin who set the bomb off?" I asked.

"No I don't think that he did?" He replied. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm trying to find out how he was connected to the other victims." I explained.

"Well I know that he seemed to already know that Oliver guy." Theo told me. This was interesting.

"How did he know him?" I questioned.

"I don't really remember how." He replied. Well that wasn't helpful. "I think he might have sang with him once."

"But you don't know where?" I asked.

"Nope." He responded. So Darius was a singer that knew Oliver. This might be useful information if Oliver hadn't toured the country. He could have met Darius anywhere. All I know is I'm pretty sure that Darius did not go to Seaview High because Oliver didn't really interact with football players because he was afraid that they would beat him up.

"Miley!" Someone called to me. I looked over and saw Taylor, not on her crutches. She walked over to me and gave me a hug. "How are you?"

"I'm good." I replied. "So you're better now?"

"Yeah I woke up this morning and I could walk without any pain." She replied. "So what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to tie up loose ends in the case." I told her.

"Are you having any luck?" She asked.

"No I haven't really gotten that much useful information." I explained.

"Well maybe you can come to my room and we can watch some TV." She suggested. "I promise I won't try to kiss you or have sex with you. I won't even touch you if you don't want me to. You just look kind of tense like you need a break."

"I really should be trying to figure this out." I remarked before my stomach growled.

"Have you eaten anything today?" She asked. I shook my head. "Miley, you still need food. You can't solve a case on an empty stomach. Come on, I'll buy you some lunch."

I sighed and walked behind her to the cafeteria. I guess she was right and I did need to eat and I was kind of low on my meal plan so I guess I could accept her offer to buy me food.

"So do you think after they catch Professor King we can go out on a date to celebrate?" Taylor asked.

"Maybe." I responded. "I know closure will be nice but I'm not sure if I'll be ready to go out that night."

"Okay I get that." She responded. "Am I being pushy?"

"Yeah you are being a little pushy." I told her. "Why are you being so pushy?"

"I guess I just don't understand why we aren't together." She responded.

"I told you. I don't want you to get hurt again." I explained to her. "You mean a lot to me."

"I understand that but I don't want you to be one of those lonely detectives on those TV shows with no love life." She declared. "Do you think we can watch a movie since we have no class?"

"Sure." I agreed. "As long as it's not some Nicholas Sparks movie."

"I actually really wanted to watch _A Walk to Remember." _Taylor pouted. "What ever happened to Mandy Moore singing?"

"She still sings and releases albums." I explained. "It's just nobody buys them. She's actually pretty nice. I met her at a talk show one time. She's also still a great singer."

"So maybe we can watch a different movie with Mandy Moore in it." She replied. "I have a bunch of them."

"You had a crush on her, didn't you?" I asked. She sheepishly nodded and I laughed. "Maybe we can watch _Chasing Liberty _and see her stunt double get naked."

"What that wasn't her?" Taylor asked in surprise. "No one ever told me that."

"I thought ever knew that." I remarked.

"Damn that was the whole reason that I had a crush on her." She replied. "That's kind of upsetting to find out that it wasn't even her."

We ended up watching the movie cuddled together. Needless to say, I had a good time. It was probably a little closer than I would have liked but Taylor kept her promise not to try to kiss me. She was really sweet and all smiles during the movie.

"Are you sure that's not really her?" She asked me.

"Yes she told me herself." I responded. "Also I haven't seen what her butt really looks like but she's in pretty good shape so it probably looks nice."

"It's probably not as nice as yours." She told me which made me blush.

After the movie was over, I got a call from Mark. He had got the audio of the call. I went to his room and he played it back to me.

"Okay they're all inside now." The voice on the phone replied. I gasped. "It's time."

"Do you know that girl?" He asked.

"Yes it's Ashley." I responded as I headed down to tell people. When I got downstairs, I founding Ashley, unconscious and being held by Drew. "What happened?"

"I found out that made a call to set the bomb off." Drew told me. "I knocked her out so she couldn't get away. Don't worry she's not dead. I just need to take her to the police."

"How about I just call 911?" I offered. After I made the call, I went down to the student center to try to piece everything together. I don't think Ashley was the mastermind behind the whole thing. I still don't think she was smart enough to pull it off. I looked at the TV and saw that E! was showing a special on the victims of the bomb. I don't know why. I kept watching and realize something. Oliver, Darius, Li, and Jezebel all sang in the same group for American Idol. That's where Oliver knew Darius from. There was a fifth member of the group. It was a blonde girl. Who was she?

"Hey that looks kind of like your friend from Sociology." Katie remarked as she appeared behind me. I guess she did kind of look like Drew. But they said that her name was Cheryl Collins and no one has been able to contact her since the explosion happened. I continued to watch the video and found out that every member of the group made it to the next round…except for Cheryl. Oh my god, I've figured it out. At least, I think I did. I had a few things to check.

I looked some old newspaper files and found that there was no record of a teacher named Brown being killed in a car crash but there was a record of someone named Collins. I looked for Cheryl's Facebook page and found that there were no posts after June 23rd. I also looked at Drew's and found that her account was conveniently opened on the 24th and the two of them had the exact same face. This was bad. This was really bad. Drew was at a party with Lilly right now. I had to warn her.

"YOU NEED TO GET AWAY FROM DREW." I texted Lilly frantically. "SHE KILLED OLIVER!"

I then started to head toward the party to warn Lilly just in case phone was dead or something. I made it about halfway to the house before someone came from behind me and put a cloth over my mouth. I looked and saw that it was Professor King before I blacked out. He had used some chloroform on me. This was not going to be good.

I woke up I don't know how much later but I was on top of the library. Professor King was there.

"Well it looks like someone's woken up." He told me. "How is Nancy Drew feeling?"

"Why are you doing this?" I asked him. "Why did you kill all of those people?"

"I had some baggage that I needed to get rid of." The professor replied. "You know I should have expected you to go to my church and see if I was there. If you want to know where I really was, I was with a girl. One that I have been seeing this whole semester."

"Why are you helping her?" I asked.

"We had some common enemies and she helped put together a team to get rid of them." He answered. "You know I'm really glad to have met her."

"She's not who she says that she is." I warned him.

"I know all about who she is." He replied. "She is someone that I am in love with."

Suddenly there was a gunshot. The professor fell over dead. I looked and saw, unsurprisingly, Cheryl was holding the gun. She had a very creepy smile on her face.

"There you are." She told me. "Good thing I found you before he could hurt you."

"Stay away from me!" I ordered as I backed up.

"What's wrong, Miley?" She asked, still smiling. "Oh that's right. I killed your friend. So why don't you go ahead and tell me how I did it."

"You were in a group with Oliver, Li, Jezebel, and Darius. You were up all night trying to learn the song and you ended up forgetting the words. Of course this was back when your hair was blonde and you were still going by Cheryl." I explained to her. "But I'm guessing you were upset because you clearly knew the song but they were the ones who didn't and made you stay up late. Li even volunteered for your group to go first. You were eliminated as they went forward. You were mad but not yet homicidal. Then your father was killed in a car crash and you snapped. You met with your advisor Professor King and you found that he had slept with both Li and Jezebel. You also met Martin, someone who liked to blow stuff up and also had someone that he wanted to get rid of. You even made a deal with Ashley, who was tired of being Amber's lackey and convinced her to be your lookout. When the investigation turned towards Martin, you used a car bomb to kill him. When I started to get closer, you and Ashley devised a scheme to send me on a wild goose chase and had Jenette push Taylor down the stairs, knowing that I would try to figure out did so but had her kill herself so she wouldn't talk. And then you sent me down the direction of Professor King because you were bored with him. You also knew that Bryan was pirating movies and wanted him punished."

She clapped. "That was a pretty good guess." She responded. "Only you were wrong about one thing."

"What's that?" I asked.

"It wasn't my father's accident that made me like this." She responded. "You see I got denied the scholarship that I needed to get in here. I didn't want to go to another school because it would be hard to see Andrew. So I talked to a drug dealer and switched my dad's prescription with someone that would give him a heart attack. I used the money from his life insurance and the settlement from the lawsuit to pay for my tuition. And I did want revenge on Oliver. I got the concert set up myself and even met with the four of them to make sure that they'd all be there."

Okay so she was worse than I imagined. She was already crazy. She also looked like she showed absolutely no remorse for doing any of it. She was more than just a sociopath. She was a full blown monster.

"What did you do to Lilly?" I asked, hoping that she was not dead.

"Nothing." Cheryl replied. "I just had her phone while she was getting punch. I deleted the message and then called Andrew to tell him to find you and grab you. You know Lilly is going to be so upset when she finds out what you did."

"What I did?" I asked.

"Yeah you're the one who killed Oliver because you were in love with her." She told me. "You used this whole detective thing as an act to make yourself look innocent. I found you with Professor King. You tried to kill me but I got the gun away and shot you. She'll love me."

"You don't even love her back!" I shouted.

"That's not really the point." She replied. "Now hold still. I want to make this quick."

Before she could fire the gun, she was tackled from behind. I noticed Mikayla was there, trying to wrestle the gun away from her roommate.

"Mikayla?" I asked in surprise.

"I can't talk now Miley." Mikayla said to me.

"Let me go bitch." Cheryl replied as she fired the gun. Thankfully, she missed. Mikayla managed to knock it loose and pin her to the ground. I noticed the gun lying on the ground.

"Miley grab the gun and shoot her." Mikayla instructed as Cheryl struggled underneath her. "I can't hold her for very long."

I nodded and grabbed the gun off the ground fired a bullet into the side of Cheryl's head. Her arms fell to the ground as she fell limp. Mikayla got up off of her course and breathed a sigh of relief.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"I overheard her saying that she wanted to meet someone on the roof." Mikayla replied. "So the two of them caused the explosion? I didn't know I was sleeping next to a killer for this whole semester."

We ended up calling the police and explained what happened to them. They called Cheryl's death an act of self-defense. Mikayla and I were about to head down when I went and walked over to her.

"Hey Mikayla." I said to her. "Thanks."

With that I pulled her into a deep kiss.

So needless to say, Taylor was disappointed but still decided to remain friends with me. As time went on, she and Lilly grew closer and started to date themselves. After solving the case, I decided to take a break in school and go on tour with Mikayla, even kissing her on stage.

After a few years, I was able to get my private investigator's license and my degree and Mikayla and I were even able to married when Proposition 8 was overturned. Even though, I didn't sign up for the things that happened during my first semester of college, I'll never forget it.

The End

So I'm betting that you weren't expecting that. From the first chapter, Drew not wanting to go to the concert should have raised a flag. That fact that she sang in chapter 10 was also important and the Albert Pujols shirt was meant to be a stealth clue revealing that she is the 5th member (Albert Pujols is Number 5). Also the movie True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet shows what JoJo looks like as a blonde. Anyway thanks for reading and don't forget to review.


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